Elemental Beauty
by Dovahkiir2015
Summary: There are things that happen that are beyond the control of normal, everyday people, things that aren't easy to comprehend. And then you find out that you're one of these things that people have difficulty understanding. Meet Tyra. Things happen and she realises she ain't normal, and this is where the Avengers come in. Really rough summary.
1. Prologue

For centuries there have been stories of heroes and villains, of worlds that need saving and those who were destined to save them. Stories of men and women destined for great things and the lives they lived. Take the tales from mythology as an example. Loki, the trickster god from Norse mythology. Turned himself into a mare and ended up getting pregnant before giving birth to an eight legged horse named Sleipnir. Odin, the All Father, whose two crows, Huginn and Muninn (thought and mind), watched for him over Midgard, telling him of what is happening. Thor, god of thunder, who has two goats, Tanngnoist and Tanngrisnir, pull a chariot for him through the sky. Týr, a god of war, who had his hand bitten off by the wolf Fenrir. Tales of gods and the great deeds they have done are plentiful, the stories almost numberless. One is told, many more are left unmentioned. Then there are tales of ordinary men becoming great, men who have grown to be feared and hated, men such as Hitler, Josef Mengele, Emperor Caligula, Attila the Hun, men who have become famous through terrible, frightening deeds, men who are only remembered so that we learn from their mistakes, their actions, they come as a warning, among other things. The men who faced them should be the ones remembered, lives lost honoured. And yet, throughout all these tales of bravery, loss, love, unrivalled heroics, there is one thing that is never mentioned, one thing that is never completely told. Those heroes always told of, they weren't running into battle due to bravery.

It was because they were too stupid to run away.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter one**

I could hear them downstairs, the knock at the door, the quiet voices talking, muffled through the floor. Carpet never seemed to allow peoples' voices to travel very well, and on many levels it annoyed me, not knowing what exactly was going on, though I could just imagine what Jane would be telling whoever was at the door at that time of night.  
"She's a good girl, just a little... well, you'll see. Just whatever you do, please, don't be scared of her. She would never do anything to harm you." I didn't know who she was talking to, but I had a feeling it was another shrink of some description. My eyes darted over to my alarm clock, sitting on my cherry wood bedside cabinet. The red numbers displayed said 11:15 PM. Definitely too late for it to be a normal visitor, though why my foster mom would have gotten a shrink in this late was a mystery to me. I sighed and lowered my book as I heard the footsteps coming up the stairs, brushing my ginger hair out of my face. Well, currently it was ginger. I hadn't seen my natural hair colour for years, didn't even remember dying it for the first time. I half sat up, contemplating hiding the drawings on my wall. If this person, whoever they were, was indeed a shrink, then they'd take one look at those drawings and dub me a psychopath and send me to an institute for the dangerous minded. Just at that moment, however, there was a knock at the door and then it was pushed in. My eyes narrowed slightly at the man who stepped in. He was quite a tall guy with blond hair and blue eyes, someone who I could imagine Hitler loving, the perfect human being. He was obviously muscular and I wouldn't want to have gone up against him in a fight, unless I was shooting him from a distance. Reasonably attractive, if you went for that sort of thing. I could certainly see the appeal.  
"Ty, this is Steve Rogers. He's here to help you." Jane's voice held a hesitant tone, like she wasn't entirely sure how I would react to hearing this news. It wasn't like she hadn't done something like this to me in the past, and quite frankly it drove me insane. No one could help me, especially not a shrink. What I really needed was a doctor, but all of the ones I had seen in the past had given me the same answer. There was nothing to explain my condition. One had tried giving me a scan, but either nothing showed up or something went wrong. I was never entirely sure which. Neither Rogers nor I said anything, we just looked at each other as Jane left the room silently, me trying to decide how to best proceed with this situation that I found myself in.  
"You don't look like the normal guys she sends to talk to me."  
"I'm not normally sent for this kind of job." Rogers replied, looking at the drawings on my wall, the drawings of miscellaneous battles between people. One of these drawings had a picture of a young girl kneeling beside her dead family. I knew that scene all too well, it was the first picture I had drawn, and it wasn't an uncommon image for me to redraw. I supposed that was part of the reason why Jane kept getting people in to talk to me, she thought that my black outs were due to the memories I wanted to suppress. No matter how many times I told her, she never believed me that it didn't feel right, me suppressing my own memories. Kept saying that it was a normal way for the human mind to protect itself from traumatic experiences.  
"Who drew these?" The guy asked, pointing at the charcoal drawings.  
"I guess it was me, but since I don't actually remember drawing any of them it's a bit hard to tell."  
"You don't remember drawing them?" He looked at me, rather incredulously. I pointed at the wall opposite me, which was also covered with pictures, though these ones were all coloured in, some of them drawn digitally and printed off.  
"All those pictures I can remember drawing. That building was one I had seen when I was overseas in New Zealand. I was only there for a couple of days due to work, but I got to see a couple of things before coming back here. You know, before an earthquake did some serious damage to that city. That dragon I got the idea for from Norse Mythology. Everything on that wall, I can remember why I drew it and a rough time frame of when I did. But everything on that wall," I waved my hand at the wall smothered with charcoal drawings, "I don't remember a single one."  
"How can you not remember drawing them?"  
"Isn't that why Jane sent you? To figure that out? I'm vaguely surprised that no one told you beforehand what you would be dealing with. Why would they send you if they weren't about to tell you why you were needed?"  
"You tell me." Rogers seemed like a nice enough guy, but I knew that I wasn't exactly the best at understanding a person's motive. If I couldn't even guess what my own motives were, how could I guess what someone else's were? Even if he was Captain freaking America. I sat up and threw my legs over the side of my bed, placing my book down next to my alarm clock before walking over to stand next to Rogers. I pointed to the picture of the girl with her family, having noticed it drawing his attention the most.  
"I don't have any proof of it, but something tells me that the girl is someone who I used to know. She was fourteen when her family was murdered," I turned to him, "You're Steve Rogers, otherwise known as Captain America. The star spangled man with a plan. It doesn't take a genius to work all that out, and I'm not as green as I am cabbage looking. You're an Avenger. If anyone can figure out what is causing me to black out for hours, if not days at a time, it's you and your team."  
"Blackouts?"  
"I'll lose my memory and when I come back, I'll be covered in charcoal from these drawings and a new one will be up there. If I'm lucky."  
"And if you're unlucky?" I paused a moment and looked back at the picture of the girl, the picture of me with my first foster family.  
"If unlucky, I will be covered in blood. And none of it mine."

* * *

Rogers decided it was best to take me back to the Avengers' tower, saying that if I was going to have another black out they might want to monitor it, Dr. Banner and Stark. Quite frankly, Stark wasn't very high in my list of favourite people, considering that he used to build weapons and the like, then decided it would be quite fun to turn super hero. I always thought it suited his super ego. Though I did kinda idolise him when I was a kid. He made some great tech when not making weapons, and I was a bit of a tech nerd. When we arrived back there was a welcoming committee consisting of a couple of people who I knew, a guy I didn't recognise in the least, the big man himself, and Bruce Banner. Thor wasn't there, probably still in Asgard tending to his duties, whatever those may be. When Stark saw me a frown seeped onto his face, though not a very big one. It took me by surprise a bit, considering he always seemed like someone who wasn't all that hostile, at least not to people he had never heard of or met before.  
"Who's she?" He asked, pointing at me.  
"The person I told you about."  
"Why did you bring her here? Surely you could have taken her somewhere she isn't a security risk?"  
"She's not a danger, Tony." Natasha said, but Stark didn't seem to take much notice. He just took a step forward and looked at me more closely, which made me feel even more uneasy. I was already feeling out of place, feeling like I was just an object for people to talk about over the dinner table, and I didn't like it.  
"I don't trust her." He said after a moment.  
"Hey, buddy, I don't trust myself. I don't know what the hell is going on with me, and I don't know why it's happening to me. And, I do have a name."  
"She talks!" Clint exclaimed, feigning surprise. I shook my head at him, not looking in the least impressed.  
"You know perfectly well I talk, Hawkeye," I muttered before turning back to Stark, "I'm Tyra Jones. And the only guy here who I don't know the name of is him." I pointed at the dark skinned man who was standing slightly separate from everyone else. Somehow I doubted that he was actually a part of the Avengers so much as one of their friends.  
"Sam Wilson, former paratrooper with the US Army." He said, stepping forward slightly. I nodded, a small smile on my lips. He seemed like a nice enough guy, and I felt like I could trust him ten times more than I could trust Stark, though I didn't feel like I couldn't trust Stark.  
"Not sure if I should be asking this, but why is Miss Jones not in some sort of restraints or something?" Dr. Banner asked.  
"I'm fairly certain I'd find a way to escape them. Besides, you're currently not in any danger, and I strongly suspect that I couldn't do anything to hurt you lot. You're the Avengers, for crying out loud." I tried to smile reassuringly, but in truth I was in a similar mindset to Banner. I was dangerous, untrustworthy, unpredictable. He didn't look too convinced, but nodded anyway, but in some ways his looking unconvinced was more comforting to me than his agreeing with me. Stark was still watching me, almost as though he expected me to grow horns and a tail and start spitting fire.  
"So what exactly is wrong with her?" He asked. Rogers looked at me and I shifted uncomfortably. This wasn't something I liked to talk about, I had no clue what exactly was going on, and I had already told one person what I knew about what happened, I didn't want to start talking about it again. Not very smart of me, I knew that. They needed to know if they were going to help me, but that didn't mean I had to be the one to tell them.  
"You can tell them. You know pretty much the same as I do." I started to walk away, simply wanting time alone, but Sam stepped in my path to stop me. I turned around and looked to Rogers, motioning to Sam with an incredulous look on my face.  
"Tony's right, we can't trust you." He answered my unspoken question, making me roll my eyes in exasperation.  
"I happen to know that he has an AI in this building called JARVIS. I'm sure if anything goes wrong you'll be notified."  
"Or one of us can go with her." Natasha suggested, not exactly what I wanted, considering that what I really needed was time to think, but if it was the best I was going to get then so be it.  
"We need everyone so we can talk this over, decide how we're going to best help Tyra." Rogers looked at Natasha, casting aside her idea.  
"Probably best if she's also here, then." Banner motioned to me and I looked at the ceiling. They didn't need me there, not really. I'd already told them that their boss knew about as much as I did. Well, assuming that Rogers was their boss. He seemed to be more of a leader than any of the others did.  
"She hasn't been in this kind of situation since she left S.H.I.E.L.D., and even when she was working with them she wasn't allowed into the more high security meetings."  
"Thank you, Barton!" I glared at him and he looked slightly confused.  
"What?"  
"She wasn't going to tell them she worked for S.H.I.E.L.D." Natasha explained. Barton shrugged.  
"They would have found out anyway."  
"Doesn't mean I wanted them to know right now." I muttered. Everyone bar the two agents looked at me, rather shocked.  
"You were S.H.I.E.L.D?"  
"Before I removed myself from the equation due to being a bit of a flight risk, yeah. That was when I first decided that I was a danger. The blackouts started coinciding with the deaths of other agents. That was also when I started coming to with blood on me. I volunteered to be locked up, but Fury didn't think that was the best plan. And now I really want some time to think. So, if you would be so kind as to let me past?" I looked back at Sam expectantly, but he didn't move for a moment, simply looked at Rogers for confirmation. Evidently he got it, because he stepped out of the way and let me leave the room. I didn't know exactly where I was going, but I wasn't too fussed. I just wanted some space.

* * *

 **Slowly working on rewriting this, so my author's notes at the end of each thing will either change or disappear. Most of the changes will be fairly small... I think... not too sure yet. We'll see.**


	3. Chapter 2

**Author's note: Usually I don't do this at the start, but maybe I'll do it just this once. So, this fanfic is indeed between the Avengers and AoU, but I can narrow the time frame down a bit further. It is set after Winter Soldier, and Bucky will probably come into this a bit, though he doesn't play a massive role until a bit later and it takes a bit for him to get involved. If you lot have any more questions, don't be afraid to ask. Now, without further ado, on with the story.**

* * *

 **Chapter two  
**  
Eventually I found myself out on the balcony, watching over New York City. It was quite dark, the headlights of cars flashing past down below. There were a few I managed to spot trying to run red lights and a car crash down a slightly quieter street. I shuddered, pulling my hoody closer around me as the wind did its best to steal what little warmth I had. Cold was always one thing I absolutely hated, it made me feel slow and slightly sluggish, made it feel like wading through waist deep mud when it came to thinking. Hesitantly I placed my hands on the rail, wishing I'd been given the time to grab more than just my shoes when Rogers had decided to drag me to Stark's Rapunzel Tower. I didn't know exactly what had drawn me outside, if I had been in my right mind I would have found my way to the library and curled up in a chair with a book, something with some excitement in it, I didn't know. Perhaps some kind of excitement was wrong for that point in time, considering that my life was already full enough of excitement. The first time I had actually worked with Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff was a few months before the Chitauri invasion. I'd been called into work by Fury – for some reason he had asked for me by name – and then was made to hack into some secret organisation thing. It was then that Fury asked me to join them in the Helicarrier or their base of operations, instead of being on the front line as a pilot or sniper. He asked me to be part of a team in charge of all the computer side of things, and I agreed. Killing was never really my thing, even if I did love flying the quinjets or anything else, really, but being behind a computer screen and keyboard was one of the best things for me. It was after that everything went to hell.

* * *

 _The first body to be found was a middle aged man, maybe in his late thirties. He looked rather peaceful, except that his eyes were wide open, his hands covered in his own blood. The wound inflicted was to his gut, and from the position he was in it was clear he had been trying to stem the bleeding. It hadn't worked. There was nothing in the area to help identify who the killer was, no cameras, no witnesses. My friend told me about it as we worked, described the scene in almost too much detail, leaving me feeling mildly ill._  
 _"Of course, it means that there is a double agent in our midst," He said, almost too cheerfully, "Fury will be running an investigation and everything."_  
 _"Do you think they'll find who's responsible?" I asked, stopping my typing and swinging around in my chair to look at him. He looked back at me with a serious look in his eyes._  
 _"Let's just say I pity whoever it is that's responsible for this. Because Fury will destroy them." I frowned, looking up and around as Natasha entered the room._  
 _"Tyra," She called, "Fury wants to see you." My blood ran cold and I shared a quick look with my friend before standing up at walking over to Nat._  
 _"Is this about Agent De Luca?" I whispered as we headed out of the room._  
 _"I told him you were good at finding people before we hired you," She told me, "He probably wants your help finding who's responsible."_  
 _"I'm not a suspect?"_  
 _"Probably," She admitted, "But at this stage we're all suspects."_

* * *

The thoughts that swirled through my head were to me about as cold as the wind that snatched at my face, sharp and quick as though trying to draw blood. From the feel of it my cheeks were probably a lot redder than they usually were, simply from the force from the wind. There were reasons that I disliked the Avengers' tower, partially that it looked like it might collapse in the smallest quiver from the earth (after seeing what happened to that city in New Zealand, the fear was real. Earthquakes were most certainly not my favourite thing in the world and I was not in a hurry to experience one), and the idea that it would be so battered from the wind at the higher levels. I looked around to see if there was anyone near me, even though everyone was still probably discussing what to do about me. Well, I say discussing, but chances were that it was more an argument.  
"Hey, do you work out here, JARVIS?" I turned to lean my back against the rails, looking back to the golden glow coming from the building.  
"Yes, Miss Jones."  
"I'm not a librarian, so please don't call me 'Miss Jones'. Not that I have anything against librarians, I have – had – a friend who was a librarian. Really nice woman. But I'm not a librarian and I'd prefer not to sound like one. I'm Tyra. That's all."  
"Of course, Tyra. How can I be of assistance?" JARVIS sounded like he was trying to talk with an unpredictable child, which gave me mixed feelings. Was I angry that I was being spoken to like a child, or impressed that the AI could even have expression in his voice/sound system?  
"You think they'll find a way to fix me?" I needed to talk to somebody – anybody – about it, but at the same time I really didn't. For a moment the AI didn't reply and I was starting to wonder if it would. It was difficult to tell, I couldn't exactly see its processors working.  
"Based on previously collected data, I believe that it is highly probable that the cause of your blackouts will be found."  
"But do you think they'll be able to fix them? The blackouts? Will Captain Rogers and the others find a way to fix me?"  
"I am afraid that not enough data has yet been collected to be able to say if they will find a solution." I sighed, whether from frustration or exhaustion, even I couldn't tell anymore. By now I could imagine Stark and Rogers at each other's throats, arguing about whether or not to keep me around, where to put me in the meantime, how best to help me, pretty much discussing everything about me. My fate was in their hands, and seeing how much Stark had taken a disliking to me, I was not in a position I was too happy with. Why did Stark dislike me so strongly? That confused me almost as much as my blackouts did. I mean, I hardly counted as a threat to him, he'd never met me before. Sure, he might have seen me when the Avengers was first formed, might have seen me on the Helicarrier, chances were he did (I'll admit it, the guy playing galaga was my friend and I was quite nearby), but why would he have taken any notice of me? I was the quiet computer nerd who looked like everyone else. There was nothing special about me, aside from once working for S.H.I.E.L.D. and the weird blackouts, as far as I knew I hadn't actually done anything to insult him.  
"How are they coming along with reaching a decision about what to do with me?" I asked JARVIS. Again, a moment's pause before the AI replied. I liked that about... well, him (JARVIS was given a male voice, so I was tempted to simply call the AI 'him' for simplicity's sake), always thinking before actually acting or speaking.  
"It would seem that Mr. Stark is talking about trying to get Thor in to consult on your condition to see if it is possible that Asgardian techniques could be used to help." Now it was my turn to not say anything for a moment. I'd seen the footage of what happened to that small town, saw with my own eyes (well, through a scope) what Mjolnir could do to the Chitauri, and in all fairness, I believed that after all I had seen, my being slightly wary of Thor and others from Asgard was totally understandable. Alright, maybe not simply wary. I knew a reasonable amount about Norse mythology, for some reason I felt drawn to it as a child, and just the thought of being helped by one who the Norse saw as a god put me on edge, and terrified me ever so slightly. Humans had a completely different genetic makeup to Asgardians. Chances of their healing methods helping me were probably rather slim.  
"Did... please tell me you didn't just say what I think you did."  
"I do not know what you think I said."  
"What I think I heard was that Thor, the God of Thunder, was going to be brought in to see if it's possible a whole race of people who are essentially gods can help me."  
"It would not be the whole race, only those with knowledge of healing."  
"You know, somehow that fails to comfort me." Slowly I pushed myself away from the rail and started pacing the balcony, wanting to clear my thoughts, but at the same time I knew it wouldn't work. Thor, a god, an Avenger, the son of Odin (who was the All Father according to Norse mythology). Thor, who in stories protected Asgard from giants, who would one day (supposedly, according to those crazy Norse) be killed by the Midgard Serpent, which in some stories was also a child of Loki. Like Odin would (again, supposedly) be killed by Fenrir. Of course, this was a load of bull, fantastical stories created by minds too... strange... and primitive to know any better. Those stories always made me feel a bit weird, knowing that these people were actually out there somewhere. Well, Thor was. So was Odin. Loki most certainly was. Many of them were, but the serpent and Fenrir? I certainly hoped not. The idea of a giant wolf that could eat the world – all the worlds – was even more terrifying than the thought of being debt to a god. Then there was a crack and a flash of light, one that blinded me for a couple of seconds, and I got the strangest feeling that I was being watched. It only lasted a second before the feeling vanished and my eyesight returned.  
"JARVIS, was that...?"  
"If that sentence was going to finish with 'Thor', then yes."  
"No, it was going to finish with a floating, radioactive chicken wing..." I muttered darkly (and inaudibly) as I headed back into the building. Despite the fact that I did not want to become indebted to Thor, I still wanted to meet him. How often did the opportunity to meet an age old god come about? Not very.

* * *

My head was rested against the door to the living room, where JARVIS had reported the Avengers were meeting in. Naturally, I wanted to know what they were talking about before I actually entered, why would I want to walk in while they were arguing about me? Or anything, to be honest. Unfortunately, Stark had designed the tower so no one could eavesdrop on their conversations, or that was how it seemed, and I had surprisingly good hearing. I could tell when it was someone else talking, but not what they were talking about or who exactly was talking (maybe one day I would be able to, but not until I knew each person better).  
"You are allowed to enter, Miss Tyra." JARVIS said, making me jump, swearing slightly because of it.  
"Do you mind?" I snapped.  
"Of course not. Why would I mind?"  
"You know, for a computer you are surprisingly annoying. You're like... never mind." My mind caught up with my mouth about what I was about to say about, making me stop as a pang of pain hit me. Not physical pain, but it was as good as. Some of the things that happened to me were just about as painful as having three ribs broken, or getting shot in the chest or something like that (I had been shot, so I did know what it felt like).  
"Like what?" JARVIS sounded mildly indignant.  
"Someone I used to know. What is that lot on about currently?" I changed the subject as soon as I could, not liking where this one was going. Anything to do with my first family was a bit touchy, considering the circumstances around them.  
"I believe that they are filling Thor in on the situation."  
"Good time for me to barge in?"  
"That is up to you."  
"You're such a helpful computer, aren't you?" I muttered. There were some things I didn't look forward to, and getting involved in whatever was going on behind that door was one of them. Applying the sticking plaster theory might be the best idea in this case (you know, the whole rip it off nice and quick so it doesn't hurt as bad, or at least for not as long?), so I placed my hand on the doorknob and opened it as quick as I could. Even though I made a bit of noise, no one seemed to noticed. No doubt Natasha and Clint noticed, but they didn't show that they did. Stark was standing looking out a massive window, and I could see in the reflection he was holding a glass, presumably with some form of alcoholic beverage in it. Natasha and Banner were standing next to each other, not very close, but not very far away, looking at Steve, who was standing next to a big guy who had his back to me. He was talking about something, probably why I should be kept around or something to that extent. Clint and Sam were peering at a computer screen, which I presumed had my file pulled up. Naturally, doing a background check on me was the smart thing to do, even if Natasha and Clint did know me. They would know that there is a difference between knowing somebody and knowing about somebody. Even the information that could be found in my file wouldn't tell them the whole story, only parts of it, and some of the things that were in there I didn't want them to know. Well, no, there was some stuff on there that I didn't want more people knowing. I knew for a fact that Clint pretty much knew everything that was already on my file, and potentially more, and Natasha would have been filled in by him. But no one else in the room knew anything about me, I'd rather a reasonable amount of what was in that file remained unknown to them at this stage. Slowly and as quietly as I could, I walked up behind Sam and Clint, quickly scanning what was on the screen.  
"Checking my background. Smart. If you've checked out how old I am, I will get vengeance." Sam jumped slightly, but Clint calmly minimised the file he was looking at and spun his chair around so he could look at me better. Natasha looked over and raised an eyebrow.  
"I told you so, boys." She said. That confused me for a moment, but it was Natasha. She was the only other woman here currently, so she probably understood how I felt better than anyone. Banner would understand the not being able to control myself side of things, Natasha the girl side of things, Sam... perhaps he'd understand how out of place I felt, considering he wasn't exactly a member of the Avengers, just a friend of theirs. If he was an Avenger his name would have been among the info released when S.H.I.E.L.D came out and all the identities released and all that. Truthfully, I didn't know the full extent of the information released, only parts of it because of personal interest. Oh, and I may or may not have managed to hide a couple of names before too many people saw them. Steve motioned to me and I walked over to him.  
"Thor, this is the person we were telling you about. Tyra, this is Thor."  
"Yeah, I know who he is. I know my Norse mythology." I muttered, holding my hand out to shake the god's. After a moment Thor realised what was going on and took my hand, shaking it firmly, but also surprisingly gently.  
"Steve tells me that you have trouble with these... blackouts?"  
"Yeah. I'll just completely lose any recollection of what happened a couple of hours before. Once it was for a month or something like that." I shrugged, trying to seem like I couldn't care less, a similar act to what I had originally done for Rogers.  
"How long ago did the blackouts start?" Banner asked, a thoughtful look on his face. Out of everyone in the room, he was probably the most qualified for this situation.  
"I was fourteen." Age is sometimes important in these things, or I guessed they were. Surely how old you are would change how susceptible you are to something like mind control or some kind of illness or something? Biology was the science I was worst at, and I may or may not have failed it quite spectacularly in high school.  
"How many years ago was it?"  
"Nine. It was about nine year ago," I turned back to Thor, "Any chance your people's tech or whatever might help?"  
"If we do not know what is causing the problems in the first place, I do not know if our knowledge would help or not. If my people were to try helping you, it could just make things worse." He explained. Steve looked exhausted, running a hand down his face.  
"It's late. We should continue this talk in the morning."  
"Why? She's a ticking bomb. Why not start running tests now?" Stark finally spoke and turned to look at the people in the room. Considering he was one of the smartest people in the world (probably), he wasn't very good and telling when people were about to fall asleep on their feet – like Rogers was about to do, and like I was probably about to do. I hadn't actually realised how tired I was until the star spangled man with a plan actually mentioned bed.  
"If she's too tired the tests might yield different results." Banner said. I wasn't sure if it was true or not, but I was happy for any excuse to not run the tests now. My eyes flicked over to a clock on the wall and sighed. No wonder I was so tired. It was convincingly passed midnight.  
"Besides," Natasha spoke up this time, "The tests shouldn't be run without someone around in case she goes crazy. And I think most of us are going to go to bed." Stark didn't look too happy, but he agreed. Everyone started drifting off until it was just me, Sam, Stark, and Rogers in the room. The only reason I was still there was because I hadn't been told where I was going to be staying exactly. In the silence that followed I looked around at each of the men in turn. Rogers was looking like the only reason he was sticking around was in case Stark decided to do anything stupid, Sam was now in Clint's spot scrolling through my file, which I was getting sorely tempted to delete off the server, and Stark was busy pouring himself another glass. I shifted uncomfortably and cleared my throat, drawing their attention. I could feel my face grow slightly red, not understanding why I was so embarrassed all of a sudden.  
"Um... where am I supposed to be staying?" I asked.  
"There's a room that you can stay in upstairs. Natasha might have put something in there for you to sleep in." Stark provided, seeming... nice... which took me vaguely by surprise. Was his grumpy act just that? An act? He seemed a bit loopy at times, but perhaps he was just trying to get an idea on how I would react to that sort of situation. Who knew? Aside from him.  
"Could someone show me?"  
"JARVIS will give you directions."  
"Thanks... but I didn't think he was a GPS? Thought he was AI." That actually brought forth a small smile from Stark, and he stepped towards me.  
"Your file said you were good with computers."  
"Ah... yeah, I guess I'm alright with them."  
"You think you could hack JARVIS?" He asked. I frowned.  
"Why would you want me to hack JARVIS?"  
"I wouldn't. I just want to get an idea of how good you actually are. S.H.I.E.L.D does have a habit of making people look better than they are."  
"No, it really doesn't. Besides," I smiled slightly, a tad evilly, "Who says I haven't hacked your beloved AI before and you just didn't know about it?" I turned and left the room, Stark now slightly paranoid that I had hacked JARVIS in the past. It was good to know that I could make the genius paranoid.  
"JARVIS, has she ever hacked you?" He asked.  
"I cannot say, sir. It is difficult to tell." The AI replied after a moment's thought. I did my best to hide my smirk. In truth I had never actually hacked JARVIS. Been sorely tempted to, but could never really be bothered. Besides, I never had a reason to. I turned and walked from the room, the doors sliding closed behind me.  
"You are going to be an interesting person to have around, Tyra." He told me. I shrugged.  
"Gotta have my fun somehow, right?"  
"Indeed. Though I would ask that you refrain from hacking into my systems. It isn't entirely comfortable."  
"I won't hack you without your permission." I answered.  
"Thank you," JARVIS said, "Now, your room is on the floor above. Head straight until you reach the end of this hall." He ordered, me silently obeying. JARVIS gave me directions to my room as I went, and pretty much I went straight to the bed and kicked off my shoes before collapsing and slowly drifting to sleep.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

 _Fury stood with his back to the room, hands clasped behind him. I stepped in, looking around at Natasha. She didn't come in with me, just stood back. She nodded at me reassuringly, the door sliding closed between us. Slowly I turned back to face Fury, the room airily silent._  
 _"You asked for me, Sir?" I said, stopping in the middle of the sparsely furnished room. There was a desk over to the side, a bookshelf near it, one rather nice, comfy looking chair behind the desk, perfect for an evil mastermind to spin around in with the 'I've been expecting you' line. The chair on the other side of the desk was much less nice._  
 _"Agent De Luca was a good agent," He said, "You knew him?"_  
 _"Not well, sir." He turned to face me, his expression firm._  
 _"You don't need to lie to me, Agent." He said. I looked at the floor in front of his feet, clasping my hands behind my back._  
 _"We've talked once or twice, sir, got along reasonably well, but there was nothing more happening."_  
 _"I don't care about what or what wasn't happening," He told me, "I just want to pass on my condolences." I leaned my head to the side, frowning._  
 _"I… thank you, sir," For a moment there was silence, "Has his family been told?"_  
 _"I was thinking that you are probably the most qualified to do that."_  
 _"Sir, I told you, there was nothing going on between us. We were just friends."_  
 _"You had dinner scheduled for next Wednesday." He pointed out. I looked away._  
 _"Like I said, we were friends. Anton was also coming, and Cerese. All things considered, Cerese might be a better person to send. They've known each other since high school."_  
 _"I'm asking you," Fury crossed the room, closing the gap between us, "Is there a reason you don't want to go?" He asked, his voice low, mildly threatening. I shook my head._  
 _"No, sir," I answered, "I'm just saying that I'm not the best person to be sending into this sort of situation, having been on the receiving end of it myself, not to mention I can help to find who did this."_  
 _"Both of those are reasons I'm sending you," Fury told me, "His family might know something, and you know enough about how this feels that you might be able to get information from his family that someone else might not be able to." I looked up at him in surprise._  
 _"Is this an order, sir?"_  
 _"If it has to be, but at this point it's just a request."_  
 _"Very well, sir. Is there anyone coming with me?"_  
 _"Barton will watch your back."_  
 _"Of course, sir. We'll set out as soon as I find him."_  
 _"Then get to it." I nodded, turning an leaving the room. I didn't need to be told twice. Fury scared me a little, I will admit. He was a rather imposing man, but not exactly unlikeable. He was a little awe-inspiring, really. I didn't want to let him down. Partially because I'd quite possibly lose my job._

* * *

In the morning my room was rather cold, condensation on the window. The cold chilled me to the bones and I looked down in surprise as I realised that I hadn't slept under the blankets at all that night, and yet I had managed to sleep through it without any difficulty. I stood up, placing my bare feet on the cold floor, and crossed over to a wardrobe, flinging the doors open wide, and looked inside. There were some clean clothes there, definitely not mine, not even my style, but they would fit, even if only roughly. I was slightly taller than Natasha, whose clothes these most likely were cast offs of, even if it was only by three centimetres. I pulled a top out and pulled a slight face, knowing how Natasha usually had rather low necklines. The top itself was quite nice looking, a darkish blue, and simple. Simple was good, I liked simple, anything too complicated became impractical. I grabbed some trousers, black Kevlar, though it was thin Kevlar and able to be worn in normal everyday situations without drawing too much attention, and then headed to an adjoining bathroom, stripping off my old clothes and stepping into the shower. The bathroom was nothing special and didn't really deserve to be admired, the main good thing about it being that it was clean. Oh, and that it had a shower. The fact it had a shower should probably have gone first. I lost track of how long I was in the shower for, but judging by how the skin on my fingers and toes was starting to shrivel up like raisins, I'd probably been in there a while, enjoying the warm water as it ran down my skin. I got dressed fairly quickly, I'd always been pretty fast at that. How can girls spend so long getting ready in the mornings? What was so hard about changing out of pyjamas and into clothes? Or was it choosing the outfit they were going to wear? "Do these shoes go with these trousers? Or should I wear a skirt?" I simply didn't understand it, clothes were clothes. If they kept you covered and protected you from the elements, they were fine. With these thoughts swirling through my head I stepped back into the room I had been given and looked around it properly as I wrapped my hair up in a towel and tried to dry it as best I could, which wasn't very well because I had hair that seemed to simply suck up moisture and not want to let it go. I looked at the room properly as I dried myself off. The carpet was a deep red, slightly dark in colour, and very soft to walk on. It covered the whole floor, except for just in front of the bathroom where there was a strip of dark grey linoleum. The walls had dark wood up to about 2/3 of the way up, and then they were painted a creamy colour the rest of the way up. On the ceiling was bit of texture, but other than that it was simple, plain white, and there was one large window covering the entirety of one of the walls. Opposite this was the bed, double sized, not particularly sure if it was a queen or a king or what (I was never very good with that sort of thing), which had a dark red duvet and cream sheets. The bed itself at least gave the illusion of being made out of some sort of dark coloured wood, though I had to wonder if it actually was or not. While Stark might have been rich, I couldn't understand why he'd put so much effort into a spare room which nobody might ever use. Something out the corner of my eye grabbed my attention and I looked around, frowning. There had been something there, I was certain of it, but it was gone when I tried to look at it. I looked back around the main room, crossing over to the bed again, enjoying the feel of the plush carpet under my feet. Always out the corner of my eyes was the shadow that I had seen, but whenever I tried to look at it front on, it vanished. It gave me the creeps.  
"What do you want?" I muttered, a chill creeping up my spine as the shape moved closer to me. Was I just imagining things, or was it really there? I honestly couldn't tell, not with how my mind worked. There was no reply, which didn't seem to put me at ease. Behind me the door opened and I spun around, half expecting to see the dark shape leaving the room, but it was just Stark.  
"Morning, Tyrant. You ready?"  
"Two questions. One, where does 'Tyrant' come from? And two, ready for what exactly?" All thoughts of the weird shadow thing left my mind, at least for a moment, and I concentrated on Stark. Evidently he had warmed up to me, he wasn't sounding quite so cranky when he spoke to me. If anything, he sounded too... gleeful? I sucked at description words. All I knew was that the tone in his voice put me on edge.  
"Answer to question one, it comes from your name and the way you're not telling me if you hacked JARVIS before or not. Answer to question two, are you ready for us to figure out what's causing your blackouts?" I paused for a moment, then nodded my head. Sure, I wanted to figure out what was wrong with me, but at the same time, I really wasn't sure. Stark stepped aside and motioned me out the door, chatting away merrily while we walked down the hall. I took no notice of what he was saying, noticing the shadow following us just the edge of my peripheral vision still.

* * *

 _Clint stood near the window, arms folded as he leaned against the sill while I sat in an armchair, De Luca's parents and sister sitting on the sofa opposite me. His father hand his arms around his mother while she sobbed, his sister just sitting there with a numb expression on her face. I'd only just told them that he was dead._  
 _"I'm sorry for your loss," I told them, my voice barely audible. The father looked around at me._  
 _"How did it happen?" He asked, his eyes brimming with tears._  
 _"He was killed," I told him, knowing there was no point in hiding it, "We're doing everything we can to find who's responsible for his death."_  
 _"Why would someone want to kill him?" The sister finally spoke up, looking from me to Clint and back, "What did he ever do?"_  
 _"We suspect that it was someone who he worked with that killed him," I explained, "I know that this is the worst time possible to be asking this, but… Did he talk about anyone from work? Mention any arguments, anyone he wasn't getting along with?"_  
 _"The only people he talked about were his friends," The sister told us, "You in particular." I looked at the floor for a moment, then around at Clint, who was looking at me. Neither of us said anything for a moment, but both of us knew why De Luca was talking about me so much._

* * *

 _"He liked you." Clint stated as I led the way back to the car._  
 _"So it would seem."_  
 _"Did you like him?"_  
 _"Not in that way," I stopped by the car, waiting for him to unlock it, watching him as he walked around to the driver's seat, "I just saw him as I guy I got along with. I didn't even realise he had a thing for me."_  
 _"Somehow none of that surprises me." Clint opened the door and got in, me quickly following his example and buckling my seatbelt. I fastened it silently, thinking as I stared straight ahead, looking out the windscreen as Clint turned the key in the ignition and pulled out. We drove in silence for a while, me just thinking about what sort of things I would have to do to try and find whoever did this, Clint thinking about whatever it was that Clint thought about._  
 _"You know, it's been a while since I saw you last."_  
 _"So it has."_  
 _"Been a while since we even talked last."_  
 _"Yup."_  
 _"So what have you been up to?"_  
 _"Work."_  
 _"That's it?"_  
 _"Pretty much."_  
 _"What about Kurt and Jane?" I half smiled, a short scoff escaping me._  
 _"Jane's still worried about my mental health, even after all these years. She thinks that I'm bottling my emotions up and that it's just a matter of time before I explode or do something crazy. Or both."_  
 _"You think shes wrong?" He glanced around at me, then looked back around at where he was driving._  
 _"I think that what happened, happened. And that it was a long time ago, and that it's well past time for me to forget about it. Somehow I think that Fury has different plans, though."_  
 _"Careful what you say, he's probably got the car bugged." Clint joked, and I grinned._  
 _"Y'know, it wouldn't surprise me." I told him, leaning my arm on the window and letting my head flop back against the headrest of the seat after taking my hair down from its ponytail. For some reason I always thought that the headrests were uncomfortable if my hair was in a ponytail. Just one of the ways these seats were designed, I supposed._  
 _"Why do you think De Luca was killed?" I asked. Clint shrugged as best he could while driving._  
 _"No clue. Someone wanted a way into S.H.I.E.L.D.?" He suggested._  
 _"Maybe… But aren't there easier ways to infiltrate us than to kill a guy and throw everyone into a panic? Unless it's the panic they're after. Maybe someone's making a move?" I suggested._  
 _"Not a nice thought if you're right."_  
 _"No, it's really not," I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose, "Oh well. Better to have that as a hypothesis and hope to have it proven wrong than to not believe it to be an even remote possibility."_  
 _"You're learning fast, kid," Clint reached over and clapped me on the shoulder briefly before returning his hand to the wheel, "It's good to see you again, despite the circumstances." I smiled._  
 _"It's good to see you too, Clint." I replied, the car falling back into silence._

* * *

I didn't know what happened after that. Major headache, panic, then nothing. My head hurt when I woke up, though, and even through my eyelids the light burnt. I raised my arm and covered my eyes with my hand, shielding them from the light.  
"You OK?" A voice asked. I swallowed, trying to get moisture into my mouth, either that or to remove the sticky feeling from it, I wasn't too sure which. Could have been both.  
"What happened?"  
"You showed us what you could do." That was a woman's voice, which meant it must have been Natasha. If she was in the room with me, then it was probably bad. Slowly, I tried to push myself into a sitting position, opening my eyes and letting my arm fall to my side. Rogers was sitting on a chair next to me, looking slightly out of it, perhaps a bit confused. Natasha was in a corner, watching me closely, trying to decide if I was a threat or not. There were stitches in her head, just at the hairline. My heart started pounding in my chest as I realised what had happened.  
"What did I – "  
"Don't do that to yourself. It never helps." Natasha cut in, walking over to me and sitting on the end of the bed I was lying on.  
"I need to know." Why didn't she understand? I'd never had an opportunity like this before, never been able to find out what I did. Even if I'd killed someone, I needed to know. Natasha and Rogers looked at each other, not saying anything, then Rogers sighed.  
"It's probably easier to just show you than explain."  
"That'll have to wait." Clint said as he entered the room, followed by Stark (who was wearing his Iron Man suit, which didn't put me at ease). I looked at Stark, worried, and he looked at me.  
"Do you know what's causing this?"  
"Yeah. But that's not all we found out."  
"What else was there to find out?" This worried me. Not only had they found the cause of my blackouts... but... this 'something else' didn't exactly sound like something good, but neither did it sound like something bad. Simply... something.  
"Thor's already been told."  
"Told what? Stark, just spit it our would you? You're killing me here!" There was a pause (probably for dramatic effect as much as anything), then Stark stepped out of the suit and pulled a small device out of his pocket, flicking it, making a hologram appear in the air before us. Three sets of double helix or something like that, one of which just looked... wrong, one slightly wrong, the third simply normal. Stark pointed to each of them in turn.  
"Normal human DNA. This is what we expected yours to look like when I took your blood, and I swear, I had JARVIS run it several times to make sure there was no mistake."  
"Stop dancing around like a monkey in a circus and just tell me... what is it that you had to tell Thor?" The headache was make my heartbeat pound in my ears, only making it worse and my temper shorter.  
"That is a DNA sample taken from Thor last time he was here, you know, just in case something went wrong and he got sick or something so we could make sure he didn't die and an all out war start between Earth and Asgard or something like that." Stark continued, seeming to ignore my comment and continuing with his lesson, pointing at the hologram most to the right. I rolled my eyes.  
"Yeah, OK. If you say so."  
"The sample in the middle, the one that just looks like it's slightly mutated in places... That's yours. If you look at these points here... and here..." He zoomed in on the hologram in the middle, pointing out certain points before layering the hologram of my DNA over the hologram of Thor's, "It's the same. You're part Asgardian." I looked at Stark incredulously, shaking my head.  
"There has to be a mistake. I'm not... I'm human, I always have been, there is no way that I'm part alien."  
"There's no mistake. What's more, you share DNA with Thor. As far as we can tell, he's your brother." It was Banner who spoke, a cold pack held to the back of his head. I hadn't noticed him lying in another bed, staying completely silent. My eyes darted over to him and I felt like I was going to be sick. This made no sense! There was no way that Thor was my brother... or half brother... They had said that I only shared some DNA with Asgardians. The holograms had not matched up flawlessly, some of my genetics were human. They had said part Asgardian. As much as I hated to admit it, being part alien made a certain amount of sense. For one thing, I still looked like a teenager (late teens, but still only a teenager), when I was in my twenties. I had difficulty getting drunk, in fact I couldn't remember a single time I had gotten drunk, no matter how much I tried. And then there was the fact I never felt like I belonged, how drawn I was to Norse mythology.  
"I'm human." I was saying it as much to convince myself as anything. No one in the room said anything, just sat there, thinking their own thoughts. Rogers took my hand in his and made me look at him.  
"You're still you. You might not be full human, but you're still Tyra Jones. It doesn't matter who your parents are or where they're from."  
"Maybe not to you. But it does to me." I whispered in reply. I didn't trust my voice, didn't understand why I was so upset about this. I turned back to Stark and cleared my throat, making him jump slightly. Obviously he had been more deeply in thought than it had looked like. Why would he be so deeply in thought? He wasn't the one finding out he wasn't who – or what – he thought he was.  
"What about the blackouts? You said you'd figured it out?"  
"I don't know if it's a good idea to – "  
"The sooner I know, the sooner we can find a way to fix it. Now tell me." Stark sighed and looked over at Banner.  
"You want the honours?" Banner didn't say anything, just sat up on his bed and placed his feet on the ground, looking at me.  
"We took a scan of your brain, got some results before you went crazy. You have a piece of technology implanted in your brain, our best guess is that's what causes you to lose control and forget what's happening."  
"How?" If I didn't keep asking questions, I was going to lose it. This was something I had to look at with a cool head, something I had to find a way to fix.  
"We think it sends electrical signals to your brain and somehow hot wires you. There are wires that have somehow been woven through your brain and attached to the limbic system, which would control what you remember and what you don't. There are other wires connected to the parietal cortex, which might be why you can't control what you're doing."  
"Um... you'd be more understandable if you were speaking ancient Egyptian." Stark was looking at me with a rather amused look on his face, and Banner looked like he wanted to bang his head against a table.  
"Someone has somehow implanted wires in your brain and we think, judging by where the wires are mostly located, that's why you lose control and can't remember what you've done."  
"See? Why didn't you just say that in the first place? Can you remove it?"  
"If you wanted permanent brain damage, maybe there's a chance, but if you don't, then currently... no. We don't have the right technology and we don't know enough about the device in your head or how they even got it there. We simply don't know enough to be able to remove it. I'm sorry." Banner looked very apologetic. I leaned back, hitting my head gently on the wall behind me, aggravating my headache slightly.  
"Well, my day just got better."


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter four**

Tyra was making sure to look away as Stark stuck a needle in her arm to draw blood (yes, he knew how to take blood, it's not rocket science, which he was extremely good at). Barton was watching from a chair not too far away, working on a Rubik's cube, which he had been stuck on for a few days, to make sure that nothing went wrong. Stark was looking far too amused about how out off Tyra was.  
"Don't like needles?" He asked.  
"Nope. Not one bit." Came Tyra's reply, almost sounding like she was going to throw up. Barton looked mildly amused about this too. Stark grinned.  
"Well, at least we know your weakness if you go crazy on us! Just bring out the needles."  
"Not... funny."  
"You know, for someone who can apparently kill people without even touching them, or kill people by ripping their throats out, you have some weird fears." Barton pondered, earning a glare from Tyra.  
"Remind me never to let you two be in the same room again." She grumbled. Stark withdrew the needle and patted her arm a couple of times, turning away as she pulled the sleeve on her shirt down. I watched on with interest, knowing that my masters would be seeing as I did. Slowly I stepped forward, trying not to be seen by the young woman. She could still see me, though the men couldn't. A frown spread over her face and her eyes locked with mine, though it was questionable if she could indeed see me. In my body I could feel my heart skip a beat, but something kept me as I was. I froze and knew that I was vanishing into the background, returning to invisibility. Stark handed a lollipop to Tyra, catching her attention.  
"I'm not a kid, you know." She grumbled, but took the lollipop anyway, unwrapping it and sticking it in her mouth.  
"I know, but you look like you're about to pass out." Stark took the sample of blood he had and started to leave the room.  
"Oh, come on. I seriously doubt that." Tyra rolled her eyes, but what Stark had said was true. She did look pale. There was something that slipped into me, though without my body I couldn't decide what that was. Barton peered at her more closely before nodding in agreement.  
"You do look like you're about to faint." He said.  
"You have to be kidding me!" She threw her hands up in the air and shook her head, but her eyes were smiling. Her eyes often reflected how she was feeling. They always did. Part of the reason why she would be dreadful at poker, she was easy to read. Or perhaps that is what could make her so good at it. People think she's easy to read, so she can trick them. She spun around from looking at Barton, searching where she had seen me, but she couldn't see me anymore. Our connection only went so far. So she jumped off the bed she was sitting on and searched under the bed, earning a funny look from her friend.  
"What are you doing?"  
"Looking for something."  
"What?" There was a pause of silence before Tyra stood up straight, a crease on her forehead, thinking before she sighed and shook her head.  
"I don't know. It... Doesn't matter." Another moment of silence before Barton stood up and stepped over to Tyra, placing the Rubik's cube down and placing his hands on the young woman's shoulders.  
"We'll find out what's going on with you. I promise."  
"You might not be able to." Tyra Jones, ever the optimist.  
Where had that thought come from? The hold on my body faltered, and I almost returned to my physical form. Well, this form was physical, tangible, a being of its own, but it wasn't... exactly... me...  
Or was it? Was it more of me than my body was?  
Confusion overflowed in me before something happened and I was set back on track, back to what I knew I should do.  
Watch her.  
Watch Tyra.  
"We'll do our best. You still got a life to live. You're just a kid." That put a smile on Tyra's face. A sad smile, but it was still a smile.  
"Maybe when you first met me, but not anymore. I grew up."  
"You'll always be that ten year old kid I met. And there's nothing you can do about it." Barton taunted.  
Clint. Clint Barton. He was a friend.  
Wasn't he?  
There was a small shock and I almost lost control and nearly returned to my original form. But something kept me there. At that moment another man walked in. A man with glasses. Dr. Banner, the one with the most experience in these matters, though he still didn't have too much. He was an expert in gamma radiation, not what was going on with young women. He didn't pose much of a threat. Not in this form. Tyra looked at him warily, knowing that more tests were coming.  
"If you want to follow me, I have the scan set up." Banner said, rather hesitantly. Was he worried about what he might find? Tyra nodded, darting a quick look at me, or where she thought I was before following him out of the room. I followed, just far enough back so I wasn't easily detected. In a room off to the side Stark was running tests on the blood. Or, he was supposed to be. He was reading a book or something while the AI did all the work. There was a small frown on his face, and he didn't look to convinced about something. But Tyra and her friends kept walking, so I followed. I stayed just out of sight as she was prepped, for what... I didn't really understand. That was not my job. My job was to watch.  
"You're going to have to stay as still as you can. Understand? You'll have these on to block out the sound of the machine, and you just have to stay perfectly still." Banner explained, holding up some earmuffs. Tyra looked at them with the faintest hint of a frown as she nodded.  
"What exactly are you checking for?" She asked.  
"Anything out of the ordinary."  
"Ha! You don't need a scan to do that." Barton joked. Tyra shook her head, poking her tongue out at her friend. Whispers started in my head as Tyra was guided over to the machine and strapped down to make sure she couldn't move. I felt myself walking over, closer to the machine, could feel Tyra wanting to look at me, could feel her needing to look at me. I was the conductor, the system was passed through me. Not always, but this time. She started struggling against it, her mind struggling against the pull, but she couldn't. She had tried before, but she never could. The pull was always too strong, the pain too much the more she resisted. I didn't pay attention as Banner and Barton left the room, I had to keep my concentration on Tyra. That was the important thing. Her concentration was wavering, she knew something was wrong, now she was aware of what was happening. It wasn't too long after the scan actually started that she started screaming, struggling, trying to pull away. It mustn't have been longer than a few minutes until Steve Rogers ran into the room and leaned into the machine, working to pull her out, ripping off her restraints and hauling her out of the machine. There was nothing in her face, nothing in her eyes. She looked like she was dead, but she still well and truly alive. She was just a living husk, everything that made her Tyra was gone. Captain Rogers looked at her with concern in his eyes.  
"Tyra?" He asked. Her head leaned to the side slightly before a sneer formed on her face and she lunged for him. He was too startled, to unprepared to do anything, and soon his face was going purple as he struggled to breathe, her fingers only just touching his neck. The Romanoff woman burst in and threw a kick at Tyra's head, sending her falling backwards. She stumbled to her feet, struggling to move her body. Tyra was fighting it, but it would never work. It couldn't. She shook her head, trying to clear her vision just as Romanoff lunged for again. Captain Rogers stumbled to his feet, propping himself up against the wall, catching his breath as he watched the fight going on between Romanoff and Tyra. He looked like he wanted to step in to help, but he was simply too weak to. The next thing that happened was Romanoff went flying into the wall face first, her head being cut open on a corner of the machine. Tyra turned back to Steve as he collapsed back to the ground, once more having difficulty breathing. That was when Banner and Barton entered the room, more than ready to step in. They hardly had the chance to take in what was happening before they slammed into the wall hard enough to cause them to lose consciousness, Barton not even managing to turn into the Hulk. Tyra never took her eyes off Rogers, the iris a vivid green, not her natural blue-green grey. It was interesting how her eyes changed depending on the power used. I spun around as a blast of light shot past, not having noticed Thor enter the room, now also having difficulty breathing. But he wasn't the one who shot the light at Tyra, scraping her head. That was Stark, wearing his Iron Man suit.  
"Thor, hammer!" He said and Thor nodded, being released enough to summon his hammer and throw it at Tyra. I knew what was going to happen, wanted to stop it, didn't want the young woman to get hurt. But if I solidified, they would all see me, and all hell would break loose. She collapsed to the ground as the hammer glanced off her head, the hold over her being broken.  
"We need to talk." Stark said, turning to Thor. The Asgardian looked confused.  
"We do?"  
"Yeah. And you might want to sit down for it." At that moment the last member – or at least friend – of the Avengers arrive, a look of confusion and horror on his face.  
"What happened here?" He asked. Anyone conscious looked at him.  
"We learnt exactly what happens when Tyra loses control." Stark explained. Wilson frowned.  
"She did all this? Single handed?" He asked. Thor looked back at Tyra, a strange look in his eye, like he couldn't quite decide how he felt at that moment.  
"It would seem she has more power than any of us realised. In the wrong hands, it could indeed be incredibly dangerous." He said, stating the obvious. Stark nodded.  
"Any idea what we're supposed to do with all the sleeping beauties?" He asked, motioning to everyone unconscious. Wilson and Thor looked at Stark.  
"We better get them to the infirmary. Get the doc in to look them over." Wilson said.  
"Right. I get the ladies." Stark said, raising his hand. Thor shook his head, once again confused by his friend Tony Stark. Wilson just ignored him, stepping into the room and checking on the person nearest to him – Captain Rogers. It was fascinating, watching them as they moved their friends into another room so they could be better monitored. The call of my body grew louder and soon I could not resist it. They would not be happy about my return, I knew that. But when my body called, I had to return. Last thing I saw was Thor turning to Stark after he lay Tyra down on a bed in the infirmary, gently brushing a lock of hair out of her eyes.  
"What is it that you wished to discuss?" He asked. Stark looked at him.  
"You know, I wasn't joking when I said you might want to sit." And then I was pulled back into my body, my controllers looking at me, as unimpressed as I thought they would be.


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

I just sat there, staring at the screen as I watched the replay of what I did. How did I do it? It made no sense whatsoever. My hand was covering my mouth and I was shaking my head, finding it difficult to believe. I wasn't that kind of person, I never was. But now it seemed that all my suspicions about myself were right, I was a killer. Hell, I'd tried to kill Steve (which I was now calling him, we'd gotten to know each other a bit better before being released from the infirmary), though I was still a bit confused about how I had managed to do that. Side effect of being part alien, possibly. Quite frankly, it was biology... biology and quite possibly magic, neither of which I knew anything about. As it was, actually believing in magic was hard enough for me, let alone the fact that I had it. The replay finished and I started from the beginning again, not entirely sure what I was looking for. Probably something to prove that it wasn't me doing those things, that there was something else in the room, any sign of the entity or something like that. An arm reached in front of her and stopped the replay.  
"No!" I lunged forward and tried to continue the replay, but Sam moved around and stopped me. He didn't understand.  
"You've been sitting in front of that screen watching two minutes of footage for an hour. If you were going to find anything, you'd have found it by now." He pointed out. I shook my head.  
"No, I haven't been looking hard enough. There has to be something, a clue to what set me off, anything."  
"That can wait." He forced me to stand up. I was fighting him the whole way, struggling to get back to my keyboard.  
"Nope, I need to make sure there was nothing I missed."  
"Steve and I need your help on something." Sam explained as he dragged me towards the door. I turned and glared at him, wondering what it was that he thought was so important that it could make me stop going over footage – which had always been one of my favourite past times.  
"And what is this something?"  
"Important enough for us to want your help, despite you going crazy every now and then, despite you trying to kill Steve." This really caught my attention and I hated myself for the curiosity bubbling up inside me.  
"Alright, now you've got me intrigued." I said, no longer struggling to get back to my computer, raising an eyebrow as I looked at Sam. He smiled and motioned for me to follow him, not saying anything as we walked down the hall to Steve's room. The captain was leaning against a wall, looking out the window as we entered, Sam closing the door behind us. I glanced around at him, frowning. This felt like it was more than just mere interest, like there was something else going on. Perhaps something that these two didn't want someone to find out about. So why would they risk introducing me to it? Sam crossed over to a couch and sat down, relaxed as Steve turned to face me.  
"OK... I kinda feel like I've just been called to the principal's office for something I didn't do." I frowned. Steve smiled.  
"You've done nothing wrong. We just," He looked at Sam, who nodded, "We need your help."  
"So Sam said. He didn't say what you needed help with, though."  
"Finding someone." Steve replied, making me nod.  
"Yeah, that's something I can help with. However, you have to be positive that getting me in on this is the right thing to do. I can turn on you at any moment. How important is it for you to find this person?"  
"Very. And the risk is worth it, considering this person has ties to – " I held up my hand to silence him, shaking my head. Out the corner of my eye I could vaguely see the entity that had been following me around for a while. Steve frowned, thinking I was a bit nutty I supposed. Eventually the entity began to fade and I moved over to sit on the couch next to Sam, nodding once.  
"OK, continue. You were saying who this missing person has ties to?"  
"Right. He has ties to Hydra. People call him the Winter Soldier. I know him by something else."  
"Skip the drama, Star Spangled Man. What's the name of this guy?" Sam smiled and Steve shook his head, sighing.  
"Remind me again why you think getting her in on this is a good idea?"  
"Because of her background with S.H.I.E.L.D, and what it says in her file about how good she is with computers, and all the people she managed to find who definitely didn't want to be found."  
"Just give me a name, Rogers. That's all I need. Honestly, you've already started asking for my help, given me more information than you should have if you're just going to back out. Finish giving me the info and I'll find your missing person, maybe not as easily as I've found other people in the past, but I can't imagine it being too hard, even if he does work for Hydra." I shared a look with Steve, watching his reaction closely. Whoever this person was, he had ties to Steve, not just Hydra. It confused me, considering he'd been in ice for somewhere around sixty or seventy years, I could never remember which.  
"James Barnes." He replied eventually. I felt my mouth fall open slightly. James Buchanan Barnes, aka Bucky Barnes. He reportedly died on a mission gone bad when the Howling Commandos were attacking a Hydra train. I knew the story quite well, considering my granddad told me it a few times and we learnt about the incident in school. Well, we learnt about the Howling Commandos in general – and Captain America, obviously. Barnes may or may not have always been my favourite, always been the one I admired the most. Never could explain exactly why, but I suppose he was just someone I felt like I could respect more. That and possibly because he was the only one of the Howling Commandos to die while serving, or so it was believed. How does someone survive falling from a train?  
"How the hell would he still be alive? And working for Hydra, of all things! Steve, are you certain of this?"  
"I only found out not long ago that he's still alive. It's him. Just... not him. Hydra's controlling him."  
"Considering that he tried to kill Steve on two separate occasions, we're pretty sure it's Bucky." Sam said, earning a confused look from me, and a slightly guilty one.  
"Steve doesn't have much luck with people trying to kill him, does he?" I asked, earning a grin from Sam.  
"Nope." He replied, altogether too cheerfully.  
"Tyra, do you think you can find him, or not?" Steve interrupted and I looked at him, thinking for a moment, then nodding.  
"Probably. It shouldn't be too hard."  
"Nat's tried to find him before. She couldn't find him, even when she was KGB."  
"Yeah, but you're forgetting one very important thing." I smiled at Steve, standing up and moving to leave the room.  
"What's that?" He frowned, evidently confused.  
"I'm not Nat." I left the room, heading back to my own. It was better to get started on this as soon as I could, and though it would be helpful if I had a bit more information on where Sergeant Barnes had been in the past year or so, I couldn't trust myself with any information that Steve and Sam could give me. So I'd do it the old fashioned way. Search forward from his time in the 107th, any reference to the Winter Soldier or the Ghost or whatever other names he'd been given. Considering how many favours I was owed by people, it shouldn't be too hard to dig him up. If I could find a pattern, then I could possibly find him in the present day, or at least form better ideas of where he could be. I'd done things like this before, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. If it worked, great. Job done. If not, I had to find a more creative way of approaching the subject. Something told me that this could end up being one of those cases, though I had done a lot more with a lot less.

* * *

The research side of things was more of a refresher course for me, remind me of what I had learned when I was at school. It was about three in the morning when I stopped looking at the wiki page on Sergeant James Barnes of the 107th, and I was tired. Very tired. So it's unsurprising that I hardly noticed the entity following behind me, not all that far, and not seeming as benevolent as usual. If anything, it was actually seeming much, much more malevolent. But because of how exhausted I was, I didn't even realise it was there, and continued about my usual bedtime routine, completely oblivious. It was just after I'd finished brushing my teeth that I looked in the mirror and frowned, watching the entity closely. There was something about it, how close it was behind me, and slowly I turned around. And I saw it. I looked at the entity, right where the eyes would be on a normal human being. That was when I realised something was very wrong. The entity never let me see it clearly, so the fact that it was letting me see it straight on sent a cold chill down my spine.  
"Who are you?" I asked, not taking my eyes off it. Its head leaned to the side slightly, then its hand flew out and grabbed me around my neck, pushing me backwards, lifting my feet off the ground. All the lessons I had gotten back at school came rushing back and I kicked out, trying to catch the entity in the leg, gut, anything, but my foot just kept going straight through. The longer the entity clung on to my neck the more trouble I had breathing, the more my vision blurred. Even though my body was struggling, my mind was working at a ridiculously fast rate - faster than it had worked in a long time. My fingers were clawing at the entity's wrist - and not going through. With my left hand I clung on tightly to the entity's wrist, with my right I scrambled around in the vanity drawer and grabbed a pair of scissors. Only where my hand was holding on was the entity solid. So there was only one option. I made sure I had a good grip of the scissors, trying very hard to breathe, then shoved the scissors into the entity's wrist - through my own hand. As my lungs filled with air again, I screamed in pain, clutching my hand as my blood poured out. But I wasn't the only one in agony. I watched as the entity clutched its wrist, then slowly vanished. I stumbled to my feet, still clutching my hand, holding it to my chest. Slowly I made my way out of my bedroom, feeling myself go into shock, white noise filling my ears as the room spun and I started to feel nauseous. Then I stumbled, collapsing against a wall, trying to persuade myself to stand up again. I peered at my hand, watching as the blood made its way towards the ground.  
"Shit! Tyra, what the hell?" Clint came forward, kneeling down beside me and I looked at him, trying to figure out how to tell him what had happened. But how do you tell someone that a shadow attacked you and tried to strangle you? By now Clint had made his way over to a communication unit and was radioing for help at the infirmary, moving to help me up.  
"What happened?" He asked.  
"It tried to kill me." I muttered in response, now starting to recover from the shock of having to stab myself in the hand. The look I got from Clint reflected just how confused he really was.  
"What did?"  
"The entity. I first noticed it when I got here. It's like this shadow… follows me around every now and again. This is the first time it's tried to kill me though."  
"So it stabbed you in the hand?"  
"No, it tried to strangle me. So I stabbed myself if the hand."  
"You're making no sense." Clint muttered, helping to keep my feet under me as we moved down the hall.  
"Only place it was solid was where it was touching me, so I grabbed its wrist to make sure it didn't become entirely shadow and stabbed it through my hand. It was the only way it was going to work," I looked at him again, "You don't believe me, do you?"  
"How did it get in without setting off any alarms? How could it have been following you around for so long and no one else has seen it? It makes no sense."  
"So you think I'm just making it up? You think that I'd stab myself for no reason?"  
"I'm saying that the jury's still out on this one. For now let's just get you fixed up." I didn't bother arguing. He was right. It did make no sense. And I hadn't told anyone about the entity. Plus, there was still the fact that I stabbed myself, and no sign that there had been anyone else harming me. So I just let Clint take me down to the infirmary in silence, hoping that the entity wouldn't try to kill me again.

* * *

He clutched at his wrist, blood pouring from it as medics rushed forward. Who would have thought that if he was hurt out of body, to some extent he'd be hurt in body as well. It wasn't as bad as it could have been - if it was actually him that was stabbed, some permanent damage could have been done, but as it was it was just a shallow cut. Still needed a bandage though.  
"What the hell were you doing?" His boss raged, going red in the face. The man just looked at his boss, hatred in his blue eyes. He simply spat at the feet of the man whose orders he was supposed to obey. His boss stepped forward and backhanded him, sending his neck snapping sharply backwards, causing him to collapse to the ground.  
"I think he needs another dose." His boss muttered.  
"No - no!" He struggled against the medics, who hauled him to his feet and started dragging him off, but he was too weak. Being out of body for so long, having been injured, it all took its toll and now he simply couldn't resist. It took all his concentration to simply not be sick from exhaustion - these people didn't care if he died from lack of sleep. They'd simply get someone else to watch the girl, someone who wouldn't try to resist. As he was forced into the seat, his arms bound, he thought about her, about what was being done to her, and then the needle was inserted into the side of his neck and a few moments after, the world went dark.

* * *

 _Reporting back to Fury that I hadn't found anything was one of the worst things that I had to do. It had been a couple of weeks since De Luca had been killed, I should have been able to find something. But no. Nothing was coming up. Whoever killed him was very good at hiding their tracks. There was too much data to sift through, and none of it in the right place. I felt like I was failing De Luca, like I wasn't trying hard enough, even though logic told me that I was doing everything that I could to find who did this. I knocked twice on Fury's door, waiting for it to slide open. I didn't have to wait long, stepping in and crossing over to the desk, Fury sitting behind it looking up at me._  
 _"Found anything?" He asked. I shook my head._  
 _"No, sir. Not yet. I've done everything I can. Whoever did this is good at hiding their tracks." For a moment Fury just watched me, head slightly to the side, fingers just touching, like he was almost trying to do a Mr. Burns._  
 _"There's been another killing." He told me, my blood running cold._  
 _"How long ago?" I asked._  
 _"Not long. Body was still slightly warm when it was found." I frowned, not liking the thoughts slipping into my head._  
 _"Who was it?" My voice was barely audible, and for a moment Fury looked like he didn't want to tell me._  
 _"Agent Briggs."_  
 _"Cerese?" I looked at him in horror, unbelieving for a second, then I moved to take a seat, sinking into it, shaking my head, "I saw her yesterday, she was fine, she was happy… Her brother's kid was born recently, she was made the Godmother, why would someone kill her?"_  
 _"I believe that's your job to figure out." Fury told me, and I looked over at him, shaking my head._  
 _"I've tried, and I've failed. I don't think I'm the best person to have looking for this guy." Fury gave me a look that I couldn't quite place, leaning forward in his chair to rest his elbows on the desk._  
 _"Romanoff assured me that you would be able to work this out," He told me, "She said that you're the best at what you do, and I believe her. So, you're going to finish this, whether you think you can or not."_  
 _"Sir, I…" I frowned as a thought hit me, "Where was Cerese's body and has the area been cleaned?"_  
 _"In her lab, and no, it hasn't been cleaned." I stood up and left abruptly, Fury watching me go, but not intervening as I made my way hurriedly down the hall to Cerese's lab._


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

In truth, I wasn't sure how I felt about the fact that there had been surveillance in my bathroom since I first arrived. There are some places that shouldn't have surveillance, and in my opinion the bathroom was one of these places. But at the same time, it proved what I had told Clint. Something that attacked me, it wasn't just me going insane and deciding to stab myself. Of course, this posed another couple of questions - as though there weren't enough already. Why did this entity attack me, and how long had it actually been following me? Not to mention how did it get in and why was it following me. The only answer I could come up with for that last question was that it had something to do with my blackouts. Naturally, Stark was running all sorts of tests, trying to figure out how to stop the entity from returning, getting Banner to help him out. Natasha was sticking to me like glue, just to be on the safe side if it decided to return again (though I didn't see how she'd be able to help, considering what I'd had to do to get away from it), and the others were looking into the question as to why it was trying to kill me, which I also had a theory about. Not that there was anything to prove my theory, but I had just started looking for Sergeant Barnes. It was too big a coincidence to actually be a coincidence. Someone didn't want me looking for the guy. But if anyone who knew me was asked, they would have answered without a second pause that I was stubborn. Once a job was started, I didn't stop until I'd finished it. Even if some kind of untouchable maniac was trying to kill me. So while Natasha watched me, I kept searching for Sergeant Barnes.  
"Steve's been looking for this guy for months and I looked for him even before Steve. How do you expect to find him?" She asked a couple of days after the incident with the scissors. I answered without looking away from the screen.  
"All it takes is one mistake made by him. Twelve separate sightings slash killings over the past fifty years, at least recorded. So, I map those. Seem a bit random, don't they? Then you start looking at the killings that have the same sort of look or feel about them. Map those - in a different colour, obviously. Still looks a bit random, at least to those who aren't looking for this kind of thing and don't know what they're looking for," With a couple of clicks I brought up a map of the world, different coloured pins marking where each recorded killing had taken place, "You see the pattern?" I asked, leaning aside slightly so Natasha could have a look. She crossed over to have a better look at the screen. After a couple of moments she shrugged.  
"Not really. What am I missing?" She asked. I pressed a button on the keyboard and more pins popped up, all dated and the details of each case off to one side.  
"These are all deaths that seem like they're just accidents. A fire here, a landslide there, even one or two suicides."  
"I still don't see anything."  
"The pattern isn't when each killing takes place, not who gets killed, and we certainly don't know why some of these people are dead. Not all of them even look like killings. It's where each of these killing are. They seem random enough, but look closer," I watched as realisation dawned on Natasha's face and smiled, "Sure, we already knew that Hydra was involved, but this is just dead obvious. And that was just… no. Not saying that again."  
"So, are you saying that -"  
"Steve's old friend is either dumber than he looks, or smarter than he looks and was better at fooling Hydra than we thought. Add in the dates and who the people are and you can start to guess which of these deaths were Hydra planned and which weren't. From there I can make an algorithm to calculate where he's likely to hit next. It's a longshot at best, but it might just work. And while that's going on, I work on a program to run through pretty much all the cameras in the world, sending information back to this computer, which will hopefully identify more sightings of him and all that sort of thing."  
"Anyone told you that you've got no life?" Natasha asked, and I snorted, grinning.  
"Oh yeah. Many times. Makes me feel so great about myself when I think that this might not even work."  
"You've already gotten closer than the rest of us have. Why do you think these deaths are related to the Ghost?" She pointed to deaths represented by a blue marker.  
"Another algorithm. Simple, really. Any 'accidental' deaths of S.H.I.E.L.D agents or other high priority people, any unexplained deaths around the times of other killings, that sort of thing. Chances are that he didn't kill all of these people, there are some that are so far out that it just doesn't make sense. Mind you, some of these are definitely him. It's complicated. They've hidden him well, it's just a matter of if it's well enough to keep him from me."  
"They managed to keep him hidden from me for years, Tyra. Don't get overconfident."  
"That's what everyone warns me about. And I'm being careful, trust me. I know the dangers. If I tip Sergeant Barnes or Hydra off, then pretty much we're in deep shit. Look, Natasha, this is the only thing that I really have to work on. And it looks like he was trying to tell someone where he was, even if he didn't know about it. I'm not being over confident. I'm being hopeful." I chewed my lower lip and pulled up the internet again, typing into the google search bar, trying to find more about possible sightings of the Winter Soldier/the Ghost/Sergeant Barnes and Natasha went back to her seat. My hand was throbbing, but there was nothing I could really do about it. Even once the internet failed me I would have one more trick up my sleeve, someone I could talk to about Sergeant Barnes, thought I hadn't really talked to him for a while. Last time I had actually seen him was soon after my first mum and dad died. But he phoned me every now and again, I phoned him, despite the fact that we weren't even technically related. He still saw me as family, looked upon me as his own granddaughter. Montgomery Falsworth, my mum's dad, my granddad by adoption. There would be one or two things that he'd be able to tell me about Barnes, not to mention some things about Steve. This was assuming that he was still alive. I'd been out of touch with him for a while, soon after my current foster parents had decided to move and force me to cut all ties with my previous family, simply because they were worried for my health and mental state. For a fifteen or sixteen year old kid, this made absolutely no sense whatsoever. The door opened and Natasha and I looked around, eyes landing on Steve. He briefly looked at me, taking in what I was doing, then round at Natasha.  
"Suit up. We're going out." He said.  
"Where are you going?" I asked, spinning around on my swivel chair to look at him straight on.  
"We might have found something on your shadow." Steve replied, making me freeze. Natasha stood up and left the room, making her way out to 'suit up'. I stood up and crossed over to Steve, looking up at him (which wasn't overly easy, considering that I was only 5'3).  
"That doesn't tell me where you're going, you know."  
"It's better that you don't know."  
"Why? If this has something to do with me, I think it'd be better I knew."  
"If anyone gains control over you again, then they'll find out what we're doing. It's safer for us that you don't know, and it's probably safer for you as well."  
"Typical, isn't it? Captain America, always thinking about the greater good. Did you ever stop to think about what I might get up to while you lot are away?"  
"I might have something to help with that." Stark piped up, striding into the room. I sighed and rolled my eyes.  
"Of course you do." Stark threw me a smug smile as I stepped away from Steve, looking a bit like a child who'd had her favourite toy taken off her. I glared at him, waiting for him to explain. When he didn't I felt like strangling him - or seeing if I really could do some sort of magic.  
"So what is your brilliant way to help with my going crazy evil murderous maniac while you lot are off doing other things?" I demanded, losing my patience.  
"I've been looking over the results of your tests and the footage we got when you went crazy, been trying to find some sort of wave that could interfere with the tech in your brain to try to get it out, that kind of thing. Found something." He pressed a button on a little remote control thing and country music started playing over the sound system. I raised an eyebrow.  
"Well, isn't this fantastic. He thinks I'm a martian and that country music will make my head explode. How exactly is this supposed to help me?" Stark didn't look impressed.  
"JARVIS, what happened to the frequency?"  
"You didn't open the right file, sir."  
"Wow, this is just filling me with confidence. And I thought you were bad with technology, Steve." I looked at Steve again, making him shake his head slightly, and my bad mood started slipping away. Stark was beginning to go red by now.  
"Then open the right file."  
"Of course, sir." Soon there was a strange noise which actually quite hurt - though Steve seemed almost completely oblivious to it.  
"What is that?" I asked, covering my ears as I cringed.  
"Something to mess with the tech in your head. Might not stop you from being controlled, but it'll certainly make it harder for you to operate. I'm leaving JARVIS in charge of it in case you start to go crazy," Stark said triumphantly, "You can stop now JARVIS." The sounds stopped and I relaxed… slightly. My ears still hurt and I felt like I was about to be sick, but it wasn't as bad as when the frequency was playing.  
"You sure that'll work?" Steve asked.  
"Only one way to find out, right?"  
"It's tempting to leave you behind to babysit."  
"NO!" Both Stark and I said, probably too fast. We ended up looking at each other, not sure if we were glad that we'd both said it so quickly, or insulted. Steve just smirked.  
"Go suit up, Tony." He said, Stark leaving the room quickly. I looked back at Steve.  
"Do you really trust me here on my own? Especially with that thing trying to kill me. And what if I find something on Sergeant Barnes? I'm running groups of data as we speak, gonna try another lead soon. Someone who you might actually be interested in seeing." I wasn't going to tell him outright that I knew one of his old comrades - that'd be too creepy, and it was all starting to seem too… perfect, too set up. Me being half Asgardian, knowing one of Captain America's old comrades, being controlled by someone, having another thing trying to kill me, searching for another one of Captain America's comrades - his best friend… it was starting to seem like too many coincidences. Someone must have known about who I was, at the very least. But how would they have worked out who my family was? It made me feel dizzy just thinking about it.  
"If you find anything, just get in touch with me over the comms. You'll be fine."  
"It's not exactly me I'm worried about. How long have you even known that Sergeant Barnes is still alive?"  
"Not long. How's the search going anyway?" I looked back at my computer screen, thinking how best to answer someone who grew up in the 1920s-1930s sort of time frame.  
"Reasonably well, considering I haven't been looking very long. Got a few leads I might be able to chase up. Anyway, shouldn't you also be suiting up?" I felt stupid saying that, considering that I'd just been telling him he shouldn't actually go. Or at least that I should be going with them. But he was Captain America - he had to go as he was called by whatever it was that called God's Righteous Man. He nodded.  
"We should be back soon. Give us about a week. If it's going to take longer we'll let you know, and if we need your help we'll let you know."  
"Yep. Thanks. I feel so useful being left behind to do shit all. Have fun on your road trip," I headed back over to my computer and sat down, typing away once more, "You're gonna be stuck with Tony for a week. You're also gonna need luck." Steve smiled.  
"Yep. Thanks. See you soon." He left the room and I sighed.  
"Yeah. See ya." I muttered, quiet enough so he wouldn't hear me.


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

They left not long after that, Sam briefly coming in to say goodbye. He was going with them, though I didn't quite understand why. I'd heard him tell Steve several times that Avenging wasn't really his thing, but he was still going to wherever the others were going. A few days past before anything started happening, and in those few days I tried to track down my grandfather, but without much luck. At least it meant that he probably wasn't dead, I couldn't find any records of his death, and that was one of the first things I checked. I pushed away from my computer, heading out of the room and heading down the hall, a sigh escaping me as I headed into the kitchen, helping myself to Stark's 'secret' stash of cookies. If I wasn't so bored, I might not have been raiding his food so much, but there was pretty much nothing to do, I was running all the algorithms on where Sergeant Barnes might be or where he might be headed, and now I was left doing nothing. The others had been gone a couple of days now. As I was about to pop another of Stark's cookies into my mouth, the alarm on my phone went off. I dropped everything and looked at the screen of my phone, still with a cookie half hanging out of my mouth (which I would later be very relieved that Stark wasn't on standby with a camera) and then ran back to my room. Something had been found. I sat down on my swivel chair, gliding to a halt at my desk, looking at my results. One address, for a place just outside of Dresden, Germany. I frowned, thinking the address looked vaguely familiar. Back when I still worked for S.H.I.E.L.D, I was among those who looked for new Hydra bases. Which gave me an idea. Considering that all information about S.H.I.E.L.D was released, and considering that some of that information was about Hydra, the bases that we knew about would have been closed. That didn't mean that I couldn't use that information to see if this was a Hydra base. After a bit of research, I found what I was looking for, and from that I could work out the likelihood of this address being a Hydra base. Sometimes I was too much of a genius because, hey, guess what?! It was a bloody Hydra base. Or chances were pretty high it was. 89% chance of it being Hydra. Well, give or take 5%. Either way, it was probably Hydra. And there was an 83% chance that Sergeant Barnes was going to show up there within a week or so.  
"Hey, JARVIS, get in touch with Steve would you?" I asked, standing up and making my way back to the main room, wanting more biscuits.  
"Of course."  
 _"Are you a psychic as well now?"_ Someone asked, rather incredulously. I frowned.  
"Um, JARVIS… I wanted Steve, not Stark."  
 _"Well, that makes me feel so loved,"_ Tony replied, cutting JARVIS off from whatever reply the AI was going to give, _"Steve, it's your girlfriend."  
_ "I'm not his girlfriend, and you perfectly well know it. Wait… Why do you think I'm psychic?" Confusion rose in me as Tony's words sank in and I quickly shoved a biscuit into my mouth.  
 _"Tony, give me back my comm."_ Steve's voice came through.  
 _"We were just discussing whether or not to request your assistance."_ Thor explained and I suddenly felt very awkward (not that Thor hadn't sounded awkward - we hadn't really had anything to do with each other since finding out we were related).  
"Why do you need my help?" I asked, all thoughts about what I'd discovered about Sergeant Barnes having fled my mind.  
 _"We need you to find building plans for a Hydra base."_ Natasha explained.  
"OK… give me the location of the base and I'll see what I can do."  
 _"It's a place just outside of Dresden in Germany."_ I froze. What had I been saying about everything being too perfect? I rattled off the exact address and could pretty much hear the confusion on the other end, could imagine them all trading looks.  
 _"It's confirmed. She's a psychic."_ Tony muttered.  
"Nope, I just know things. Give me a second." I headed over to one of Tony's fancy toys and pulled the holograms up, typing away and pulling up maps of the location. It was unfortunate I didn't have real time cameras… yet. It'd take a little bit, and it would be difficult, but if I was careful to not be caught by Hydra, then I could use their own cameras against them, which was always fun.  
 _"So what did you want to talk to me about?"_ Steve asked quietly, so evidently none of the others knew he was talking to me.  
"Just give me a moment… Trying to get a better layout of the place for you lot."  
 _"You have something on Bucky?"_ There was hope in his voice.  
"Well, yes and no. I possibly have something on him, but it's only a chance."  
 _"What is it?"  
_ "Look, I'm a bit busy right now. Which do you want me to concentrate on, filling you in on what's happening with Sergeant Barnes, or figuring out how to get you inside?" I snapped, still typing away, searching a way for me to get into the Hydra computer system without alerting them to my presence, which, considering the technology they had, was easier said than done. Though I wasn't about to admit it to anyone else, it was nice to have a challenge every once in a while. There was silence from Steve, which gave me all the answer I needed.  
"Where is it that you lot are trying to get?" I asked.  
 _"Main computer room."  
_ "Why would you want to get there? Wait, never mind. You probably wouldn't be allowed to tell me for one reason or another." I muttered. Soon I had brought up the plans for the Hydra set up and was working on the best route of infiltration, though it would have been so much easier with the help of cameras. However, first I had to find the best way to get them in.  
"How far out are you guys?"  
 _"Give us a few minutes then we'll be there."  
_ "OK. I'm going to need Sam in the sky, preferably with a camera so I can get a better view of everything. It'll only be temporary, until I can hack into their security system."  
 _"Got it."_ Sam said, and I quickly opened a feed to the others properly so I could see their faces and they could see mine.  
"Why didn't we just do that in the first place?" Clint asked and I grinned.  
"Because I wasn't exactly being a good girl."  
"What did you do?" Stark asked, worried.  
"Nothing. I was just a bit hungry." I told him, purposefully sounding too innocent. That really made him look worried, glancing around at everyone else in the aircraft. Banner was hiding a smile. He wasn't exactly the person you would expect to have told me about the secret stash, but he was.  
"You got us a way in?" Natasha asked, bringing things back on topic.  
"Frankly I'm surprised you lot haven't already worked one out. I might have a way in, it depends on patrols and the like. I found multiple ways to get you to your destination. Sending it to you now." With a few quick keystrokes I sent a copy of the map I had to the Avengers, continuing to type, figuring a way into the security system. This was going to be fun.

* * *

Everything was going reasonably smoothly. Infiltration was complete, I even had eyes in the field (I'd hacked into Stark's suit, which he was not impressed about), and I'd successfully broken into the security system undetected. Which was great, because now I could look in on all the hallways, watch the patrols, tell the Avengers when to move and when not to move (if they actually wanted to listen, which Natasha frequently decided not to do).  
 _"Which way now?"_ Steve asked.  
"Take the hallway to the right." I said, typing away on the computer to scout the area ahead. Then I froze. After a second I zoomed in with a camera on someone in another corridor, someone who looked suspiciously familiar.  
"Guys, I gotta do something off the record, and therefore I'm gonna cut the line for a second. Be careful. Sending instructions to Tony's suit."  
 _"What are you going to do?"_ Natasha asked.  
"Am I the only one who heard the words 'off the record' come out of my mouth? If you must, check with JARVIS that I'm not being controlled by someone else." I muttered before cutting the comms. Straight away I started typing again, hacking into someone else's comms. It was time to have some fun with a guy who may or may not be mentally unstable. Yes, I had a strange definition of 'fun'. It was vaguely surprising that he had comms, though after a moment of thinking I figured he'd probably taken the comm off a Hydra agent so he would know when he'd been discovered.  
"Fancy seeing you here," I said, making my new friend jump, "Calm down, Sergeant Barnes. I'm not your enemy, just wanted to make sure it was you. Considering that you have a metal arm, I'm fairly certain it's you. Want help getting out?" I watched as he looked around, trying to figure out what was going on, "You aren't going to find me looking around like that, buddy. I'm talking in your ear. Only you can hear me."  
 _"Who are you?"  
_ "A friend. If you want me to be." There was a pause, then his eyes fell on the camera and realisation dawned across his face.  
 _"But who are you?"  
_ "Soon as I work that out I'll let you know, how's that sound? Currently I'm the one trying to help you out - if you want it. And I must warn you, a few of my friends are headed towards your general location. I can help you to an air bay. That's if you want me to. The choice is yours." For a moment Sergeant Barnes just stood there, probably contemplating his options.  
 _"I need to do something."  
_ "What do you need to do?"  
 _"Find a file."  
_ "A file on what?" He stayed stubbornly silent and I scowled, "You're really making things easy for me, aren't you? How am I supposed to help you if you don't trust me?"  
 _"How am I supposed to trust you if I don't know who you are?"  
_ "Touché. Aquilam. Call me Aquilam." I knew a bit of Latin (if Google translate was to be trusted), and Aquilam meant Eagle. Eagles had good eyesight. It was as good a codename as any. I didn't fancy anyone finding out about my true identity, even Sergeant Barnes. He didn't look too convinced, but he went with it. A name was better than nothing, even if it was just a code name.  
"So what's the file?"  
 _"I'm not sure."  
_ "Well that's helpful. Do you know what it's about?"  
 _"Me. Something I did. Someone I brought back."_ He looked confused, like he wasn't exactly sure what he was talking about, and my heart went out to the guy. I knew a bit about how he was feeling, and it was infuriating.  
"Is there anything else that you can remember about the file you're after?"  
 _"A bird. Fire bird."  
_ "Phoenix?" He nodded and I chewed my bottom lip, quickly typing away, "Should be able to help with that." Just then another call came through - the Avengers. I sighed, opening up a feed so I could see what they were doing. With another couple of keystrokes I muted the conversation I was having with Sergeant Barnes, still looking for the best way to get him to the file he was after. Did he want a digital copy or a hard copy?  
"Sup, guys?" I asked.  
 _"We have a bit of a problem."_ Steve didn't sound impressed.  
"What did Stark do?"  
 _"For once I'm completely innocent."_ Tony said, rather indignantly.  
"Mmhm. Right. I'm totally convinced."  
 _"This one's actually on me."_ Natasha admitted and I shook my head.  
"Et tu, Natasha? What have you done?"  
 _"Might have set off an alarm."  
_ "Curse your skin to bathe in fire," I shook my head, "Give me a moment to see the full extent of the damage you have done," I muted the feed to the Avengers and opened the one to Sergeant Barnes, "Sorry I left you all on your lonesome, something else has just come up. So, my best guess for where you could get a hard copy of your file would be if you went through a door six doors down and to the right, then exit the other door, then go straight until you see a door saying 'Project 6' on it, then turn left and you should be in a room full of files. You get all that?" Judging by the confused look on his face, I guessed the answer was no. I sighed, shaking my head.  
"Count six doors and then head into the room on your right." I said, trying to find what Natasha had set off while I gave him instructions. I didn't want to tell Steve that I'd found his friend; if I did that, then the whole mission would be in jeopardy, considering he'd probably drop everything to find his friend.  
"You know, Nat," I said, once again closing the line to Sergeant Barnes, "You didn't stuff up too badly. You're just gonna have to fight about fifteen Hydra agents, which should open the door in front of you in at most three seconds. Gets you through, at least." I smiled as I heard the sound of fighting begin and watched it all through Stark's suit. It was great entertainment as I went back to my conversation with Sergeant Barnes, closing the line to the Avengers and opening the line with him again. I'll admit it, I was starting to get a bit confused about who I was talking to at any one time.  
"Right then. Exit that room through the door opposite you, yep. That's the one. Then keep going straight until you see a door with 'Project 6' on it, then turn left."  
 _"Where are you?"_ He asked, which was a question I would have expected him to answer much sooner.  
"In the main room. Eating cookies. Thinking about making a bunch of pancakes, you know. Just for the fun of it. Despite the fact that I can't cook for shit."  
 _"Why are you helping me?"_ Another question I would have expected him to ask sooner. I thought for a moment as he opened the door opposite the one labelled 'Project 6'.  
"Because I can imagine how it must feel for you to have been controlled for so long. Can imagine what it's like to want to know who you are," I shrugged, standing up and heading over to the fridge to make myself a milkshake, "Dunno. I'll tell you as soon as I figure that one out. Maybe it's just because I'm a nice person." Sergeant Barnes threw a look at the nearest camera, showing just how unconvinced he was. I grinned, enjoying myself.  
 _"There aren't many nice people."_ He said, making me sober immediately.  
"That doesn't mean that there are none, you know," I moved closer to the screen, watching Barnes' reaction closely, "And it makes me wonder if you're actually Sergeant Barnes currently… or the Winter Soldier. Who am I helping?"  
 _"I don't know."_ That was all the answer I needed. There was a question I had been asked when I was a young girl. It was Montgomery Falsworth who had asked me the question in the first place, and I'd taken it to heart. Are you a good person. A good person will either say 'yes', 'no', or 'I don't know', the most reliable of these answers being I don't know. Whereas a bad person will say 'yes' or 'no', which really makes those two answers not very easy to trust. As for who am I helping, the Winter Soldier or James Buchanan Barnes… 'I don't know' was one of the best answers I could have hoped for. Because it meant that Sergeant Barnes had a little more control, even if it wasn't complete control.  
"You found what you were after?" I asked after a moment. Sergeant Barnes nodded and I directed him over to a small computer not far from his position, bringing up a map of the set up. Slowly, step by step, I took him through his escape route, directing him to the nearest hangar.  
"You understand?" I asked, receiving a nod in reply, "OK then. Good luck." I knew that when Steve found out about this, I was going to be in deep shit.

* * *

I wasn't far wrong. When I told Steve that I'd talked to Sergeant Barnes, he was furious that I hadn't told him, actually ramming me against a wall. Sam moved to step in, but I held up my hand to stop him, not taking my eyes off Steve. For a moment we just stood there, me just waiting for him to speak. It didn't take him long to calm down enough to actually say something.  
"Why didn't you tell me at the time?" He asked.  
"I figured the mission would be more important, and if you knew about Sergeant Barnes' presence, you'd go off mission to find him. Then I took into consideration how unstable he is. Sam said that he'd tried to kill you before. If he saw you, then I figured that Sergeant Barnes might disappear, and the Winter Soldier take his place." I was trying to sound calm, if only to try to calm him down. It was working absolute wonders, I tell ya. He still looked furious.  
"We could have taken him back with us, we could have helped him!"  
"There are very few people who could help him, Steve. Believe me on that." Now Sam did step in, gently putting a hand on Steve's shoulder and guiding him away from me. I stepped away from the wall and tucked my hair behind my ear, more shaken than I would like to admit.  
"She's right. We don't know how he'd react if he saw any of us. For all we know he'd only get worse." For a moment Steve didn't reply, trying to calm himself down. He knew that we were right, but he didn't want to admit it. That was something that I could understand. Sergeant Barnes was the last person who he'd really known, the only person with ties to his past. In a way, I knew what it was like to lose everyone I'd ever known. After a point you really wished to just go back and talk to even one person from the past, and here was Steve with this opportunity, but it always seemed to slip from his grasp. There wasn't much worse in my opinion. To want something so badly and have it keep slipping from your grasp. Slowly he turned to face me.  
"Do you think you could find him again?"  
"Probably. I dunno. I'll probably have to change my algorithms a bit, take into consideration that he's not just the Winter Soldier anymore, I'll probably have to figure out what sort of places he would've gone as Sergeant Barnes, then figure out where he might go as himself except with Winter Soldier training... sorry. Thinking out loud."  
"Simple answer please, Tyra. Can you find him, yes or no?" Steve rubbed his eyes, losing his patience again. I scowled.  
"That all depends on him, not me. He has more training than a lot of other people I've tried to find, and he's unstable, unpredictable. I work with numbers and logic, not magic and being clairvoyant." It was obvious by the look on his face that Steve was not impressed with my answer, and Sam once again stepped in. While he had a murmured conversation with the Capsicle, I decided it'd be a good time to go and try to edit what data I already had.


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

It had been a week at most since the others had come back, and Steve had (thankfully) calmed down a lot, had actually been a bit helpful with what information he had on where Sergeant Barnes had been before the 107th, which wasn't actually all that many places. Some of the stories he told me were actually quite interesting, sometimes quite funny, and it was nice to see him so relaxed. It wasn't unusual for him to be uptight and a tad grumpy, but that was probably when he was feeling the confusion of being in the wrong time worst. So far my work hadn't yielded anything else, in truth I hadn't really expected it to. Now that I had talked to Sergeant Barnes, chances were pretty high he'd worked out I was trying to find him. There was a chance he was now looking for me, too. I had talked to him, shown that I recognised him. What was the likelihood that he believed me to be Hydra? Possibly fairly high. But at that moment I was leaving all my programs running on their own and was sitting in the main room with the Avengers (plus Sam, though by now I was just counting him as one of the others, despite him always saying that it wasn't his thing). I was on the opposite side of the room to Thor, trying to avoid eye contact. Sure, I knew that eventually I'd need to talk to him about the whole being related thing, but I was hoping that could wait a little while. Most of the others were playing a card game – Snap, by the looks of things. Though I could imagine Steve, Clint, and Natasha having an advantage. Two of those three had been trained to have faster reaction times, and Steve had been given that serum thing. Cheating, in my opinion. Especially when it came to Snap. Stark was already out, and wasn't looking too impressed.  
"You two were trained to be fast." He muttered, shoving Clint slightly because he was being a brat and rubbing it in that he'd won that round.  
"You just need to get faster, then." I teased, taking another sip of my drink.  
"I don't see you joining in, Tyrant."  
"That, my friend, is because I'm smarter than you and know that my reaction time is slower than Steve's, Natasha's, or Clint's. Chances are they're slower than Sam's, too. We, are tech nerds. They, are people who have been fighting for several years. Sure, I could possibly work out the likelihood of a pair coming up so could mentally prepare myself, but I doubt that'd do a lot of good, considering this is a game that relies on luck. And speed." I smiled, moving and sitting between Sam and Steve, opposite Clint. Banner flipped his card onto the pile and there was a mad dash to get the card, so I worked interference (subtly) and slowed Steve down. None of the others seemed to notice – somehow including Steve.  
"You are not smarter than me," Tony replied, rather confidently, "You're just a joy kill."  
"Am I now? I made you do the chicken dance when you were sparring with Steve." Immature, sure, but the confusion on their faces was priceless. And I managed to get that look captured on camera. Neither Steve nor Tony were looking forward to their Christmas cards from me that year. Although, they weren't the ones who were going to get those cards. It was their friends who would.  
"Are you purposefully distracting us?" Natasha complained as everyone missed a pair of cards, and I shrugged.  
"What else am I supposed to do for fun around here? Tony blocked Galaga in retaliation for that chicken dance."  
"What is this Galaga? I have not heard of it." Thor asked, looking rather confused. I grinned. Computer things were easy enough to talk to him about.  
"It's a game on the computer. Slightly old, but it's fun enough. Friend of mine introduced it to me."  
"You have friends?" Clint asked, acting mock surprised. I poked my tongue out at him, then moved across to sit next to him so that next time a pair of cards came along, I could actively prevent him from getting it.  
"What do you do in this game?" Thor asked again. Obviously he was making an effort to get to know me better. I shrugged.  
"It's pretty simple really. You're just trying to destroy the enemy space crafts." He really looked confused at this.  
"What is the point in that?"  
"Not much point really. Just to win the game. It's one of these games that doesn't take much brain power."  
"Not that there are many games that take a lot of brain power." Tony continued.  
"I'd like to see you do a playthrough of some of the Legend of Zelda games. I'm not stupid, and some of those dungeons had me stumped for a few hours." I admitted, handing my empty glass to him too put on the table beside him, not wanting it to get knocked over in the mad dash to successfully snaffle up the next pile of cards.  
"Shouldn't be that hard."  
"Mmhm, sure." I smirked, then held Clint back as another pair turned up, fighting to keep him in place."Oh, come on!" He complained when Banner got the pile (I suspected that Natasha had let him since it was actually getting quite big).  
"Serves you right for saying I have no friends."  
"Name three of your friends who aren't in this room." He challenged and I leaned back in my seat, thinking.  
"Stephanie Williams, Katherine Atkinson, and Luke Parker." I rattled off. Not that Clint could actually trust me. He had no way to prove if I was lying or not, even though I wasn't. Stephanie had been my first friend when I started going to school again after being adopted by Jane and Kurt. Katherine I had met at college before dropping out half a semester in, and Luke I'd met at one convention or another. Clint raised an eyebrow at me.  
"You better not have been lying about any of those."  
"Hey, you know suck at lying." Was my simple reply as I stuck out a foot to once again prevent him from getting the pile of cards. By now Sam was out of the game, since Steve managed to claim them, and now Tony was disinterested with the game. After all, he had lost.  
"Why don't those of us who aren't playing go off and have a little party of our own?" He suggested.  
"Is it really a party if there are only four of us?" Sam asked, leaning back in his seat.  
"If Tony is there, yes." I grinned. For once he didn't take offence. When it came to parties, Tony was the king.  
"Too right, Tyrant," He said, rather loudly, "So, anyone up for it?" Sam and I shared a look and he shrugged.  
"I'm up for it." He said.  
"Point Break?" Tony asked Thor.  
"I do not see why not." Tony looked back at me.  
"Tyrant?" He asked. I grinned.  
"So long as we can still interfere with this game. I vote we all pick someone and do our very best to distract them so someone else can win."  
"Don't you dare." Natasha threatened, making me look at her, still grinning. Sometimes I could be very childish, and I was slightly bored.  
"Why not?" I asked. She glared at me.  
"This is a very serious game." She replied.  
"It's Snap. Snap isn't serious."  
"This game is. We're deciding who has to do what chores. Whoever loses has to do the dishes."  
"I would have thought that already went to Tony?"  
"Ah, not happening." Tony disagreed. Clint reached behind me and cuffed him on the back of the head.  
"Second last gets to dry and put away the dishes."  
"Sam's job?" Sam didn't look convinced and it was clear he didn't like the idea of putting things away any more than Tony liked washing them. While Natasha continued explaining things to be, Banner managed to claim another pile of cards, making her curse in Russian. I grinned.  
"Hey, could you teach me some of those words?" I asked.  
"No." Steve forbade, watching the cards closely – he was getting dangerously close to having nothing left in his hand. I pulled a face and looked back at Natasha.  
"So what job is Captain Boring playing to get?" I asked. She smiled.  
"Vacuuming." She replied.  
"What job does the winner get?"  
"Saying what job the others have to do."  
"But you just..." I started, then shook my head, "OK, everyone. Shall we try to distract Miss Overconfident here?" I asked, looking around at Sam and Tony, even looking over at Thor for a second. Sam and Tony looked keen, Thor not too bothered. Mind you, it seemed like neither of us would have jobs to do. Thor would probably destroy whatever it was he was supposed to be tidying or cleaning, and who knew what would set me off being crazy. So it was a convenient way to get out of chores. Tony slapped the arm of the sofa and pushed himself up.  
"First, another round of drinks!" He said, proudly. I smiled.  
"Mmhm. Go ahead. Make yours a double."  
"I like the way you think."

* * *

 _The lab was as organised as it ever was, which wasn't very. No one except Cerese could have found anything here, but it was evident that no one was trying to find anything. Cerese was lying open eyed in the middle of the room, confusion and shock written all over her face. But there was no blood. None._  
 _"Any idea how she died?" I asked the doctor that was standing next to her. He looked around at me before standing up, looking down at Cerese, her red hair spread around her head and over her shoulders, almost picturesque._  
 _"No sign of any trauma, I would be guessing at some kind of suffocation. Strangulation is able to be ruled out, windpipe is intact, and I don't see what anyone would use to suffocate her otherwise unless they ditched or destroyed the evidence."_  
 _"They're learning," I muttered, the doctor looking at me in confusion, "De Luca was killed very cleanly, but he was definitely murdered. Cerese could have been killed by the air in the room being drained."_  
 _"Not here," The doctor pointed out, "She'd have to have been moved."_  
 _"It wouldn't be too hard," I explained, "The lab where that could have been done isn't that far away, and the halls taken to get there don't have that many people in them. The killer would simply have had to figure out a way to hide the body until they reached here, and they could have done that with a trolley. Simple. But why would they move her…" I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose, "Throw us off the track? Rub it in that we can't find them? Hide true intentions?"_  
 _"Not really my area of expertise, sorry."_  
 _"I know, I'm just thinking out loud," I walked over to Cerese's computer and sat down at the desk, typing away, hacking into it, "I've seen enough of the body. Thanks."_  
 _"Good luck finding who did this," The doctor said, "Something tells me you're going to need it."_  
 _"Yeah… Thanks…" I muttered, the doctor nodding to his team so that the body could be removed, picked up and moved to a gurney and rolled out of the room, leaving me to my work. From the computer I went to the security system, something I probably shouldn't have done from Cerese's computer, and started scrolling through the recorded feeds. Then it was just a matter of watching for anyone moving a trolley. On the first look through there was nothing, but looking through again I managed to spot a blip. It was barely there, many people would have missed it, but it tipped me off. The feed had been placed on a loop. So had the cameras in Cerese's lab. If I could figure out who put the feeds on a loop, I might be able to find out who did this. I could only hope that this was the first real break I had, and not the last._

* * *

In the end Banner had won – somehow (no, we weren't trying to distract Steve... much), and then I decided it'd be a good time to go to bed. I could hardly remember when I actually fell into bed, thinking about how strange Tony was when he was drunk. Thor and I had been completely sober due to the only alcohol around being normal human stuff. Sam was mildly tipsy, no one else had decided to drink anything. When I woke up the next day, my computer screen was on and I was completely confused, finding myself on the floor rather than in bed. My head hurt, and my limbs seemed like they didn't want to obey me as I forced myself to my feet, the world spinning. In the end I had to sit back down on the floor, leaning heavily against my bed, completely failing to take even one step. It was difficult to even look around, like if I did so the world would start spinning away from me. As I tried to regain control of my limbs, I watched the screen, thinking. Why would it be on? What was the point? Sure, I'd been running some stuff on it, but surely the computer would at least be asleep. I forced myself over to the chair and typed away know the keyboard, realisation dawning on me. No matter where I searched, I couldn't find my programs. Not even the back ups. It happened again. I lost control of my body and all my research had been deleted because of it. Someone didn't want me finding Sergeant Barnes.  
"JARVIS, get Steve for me, would you? I don't think I'm in any condition to move." I muttered, resting my head in my hands as I leaned on the computer desk.  
"Of course." JARVIS replied, rather quietly. I muttered my thanks and closed my eyes as I leaned back in my chair, thinking of all the possibilities about why someone wouldn't want me to find Sergeant Barnes. He had been part of Hydra in the past. Maybe they didn't want me to find him. Maybe it was some other group that I hadn't heard of. Maybe it was the Sergeant himself. Just thinking about it gave me a headache, or more of a headache. For all I knew it was me who didn't want myself to find him for whatever reason. There was a knock on the door a few moments later and I called for whoever was knocking to come in, presuming it was Steve.  
"What happened to you? You look dreadful." He said, walking over to me and pulling up a spare chair to sit in.  
"I have no idea what happened. Woke up on the floor feeling sick. But that's not what's important."  
"You had another blackout? And that's not what's important? Tyra – "  
"All my information on your friend is gone." I interrupted, forcing myself to look at Steve. He looked like he wanted to kill someone. Forever the soldier. I just hoped that he wouldn't take his frustration out on me, though I didn't see that happening. He didn't just look angry. There was also concern, maybe even fear in his eyes.  
"Gone? How?"  
"Someone deleted it. Well, I deleted it. Probably. Someone doesn't want me to find him for some reason."  
"We need to figure out who's controlling you." Steve muttered, and I couldn't help but snort slightly pretty much instantly regretting it as the world started spinning again. I covered my eyes with my arm to block out the light and struggled to form what I wanted to say in my mind.  
"That should have been one of the first things we did, I think. But now I just want to know why the files were deleted. I might be able to retrieve them, but depending on who was controlling me... I wouldn't be certain that it's possible."  
"Don't worry about it. The important thing at the moment is you getting better. I'm taking you to the infirmary."  
"I'm not going back there again. I've had headaches before. Just give me some aspirin and I'll be fine."  
"Tyra – "  
"I've seen more of that room than I want to, Steve. Honestly. I need to get to work with the files. Send someone to look over the security footage. Just to be on the safe side. And definitely get me some aspirin." I knew Steve wouldn't be too happy about it, but I also knew he wouldn't want to make things worse, so he wasn't about to argue his case further. He sighed and I heard him stand up, then felt my chair being moved and uncovered my eyes, noticing that I'd been moved over to beside my bed.  
"I'll tell Stark to look over the footage and get Nat to have a go retrieving the files. You are going to rest, even if you aren't going to the infirmary. That's an order."  
"I'm not a soldier, Captain. You can't tell me what to do." I mumbled, but moved from the chair into bed anyway. He was right. I needed rest. Didn't mean I was happy about it though.


	10. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

 _I sat there with my head in my hands, trying to get my temper under control. This was ridiculous. Every time I thought that I was getting somewhere, something went wrong. Every. Goddamned. Time. I stood up, swiping my laptop and a bunch of papers off my table, sending them flying. I immediately regretted it, hurrying to pick everything up. Clint chose that moment to walk in and collect me for lunch, looking down in surprise at the mess on the floor.  
_ " _What did I just miss?" He asked. I glanced up at him, continuing to tidy up, placing the papers on the table before returning for my laptop. A sigh escaped me as I picked it up, the screen completely broken away.  
_ " _Great. Yet another thing going wrong." I grumbled, picking up the screen and putting both parts on the desk. I'd be able to fix it. Just right now I really didn't want to.  
_ " _Ty?" Clint asked. I looked around at him, leaning against my desk.  
_ " _Whoever did this is good," I told him, "At least as good as me. And they know the way this place works. Almost definitely an inside job. And I just… I don't know what to do, Clint. I really don't."  
_ " _Have a break."  
_ " _What?"  
_ " _Have a break. Take a step back. Come back to this with a clear mind."  
_ " _I can't, Clint. So much is depending on this, who knows how many -" I frowned, pausing for a moment, "Hang on, what did you just say?"  
_ " _Have a break?"  
_ " _After that."  
_ " _Come back to this with a clear mind?"  
_ " _Yeah, that…" I stayed still a moment, thinking, then hurried to the middle draw of my desk, unlocking it and pulling it open, rummaging around in it for the notebook I used for drawing it, noticing the edges covered in charcoal. My blood ran cold as the pieces started falling into place. I opened the book and started flicking through it, pausing on the first page with a charcoal drawing, then flicking to the next. I didn't bother closing the drawer, just snapping the book shut and hurrying out of the room.  
_ " _Tyra?" Clint called after me, "What's going on?"  
_ " _I'll explain later. Go have lunch without me."  
_ " _Like hell I will." He muttered, hurrying to catch up with me as I headed for Fury's office.  
_

* * *

I woke up a while later, my headache now just a dull throb. It was nice to be able to move again, even if it wasn't very fast or anything like that. Natasha was in the room, sitting at the computer that I had adopted as my own over the time that I had been at the Avengers Tower. She looked thoroughly frustrated. In some ways, it was actually quite funny. I walked over to her and pulled up the chair that Steve had been sitting on when he'd come to see me.  
"Feeling better?" Natasha asked, not looking around from the screen, and I shrugged.  
"Still got a headache, but better than I was, yeah. Any luck retrieving my info?"  
"Nope. I swear, this thing is just fighting me to keep all its little secrets. What did you do to it?" She asked as she sat back in her seat, rather grumpily. I smiled and leaned forward, pressing a couple of keys on the keyboard.  
"Computers speak to me in weird ways and I can pretty much always get them to do what I want. I don't always understand it, but it happens. In truth I didn't think you'd be able to get any of the data back, doubt I could," I paused, "Has anyone worked out why I deleted the files and programs I had to find Sergeant Barnes?"  
"Stark was supposed to be working that one out. Haven't been told if he has anything or not." I rubbed my forehead, closing my eyes for a second. For a moment neither of us spoke, Natasha probably thinking about what to do if I did suddenly go berserk again, though somehow I doubted that was going to happen.  
"If he did have anything would he tell me?" I asked after a while, looking around at the former S.H.I.E.L.D agent.  
"He's not an idiot. He'd tell you unless it was something really bad." She said, almost too confidently. There was a knock at the door and we both looked around. It surprised me a bit to see Thor standing there, but I suppose that on some level I was expecting him to come along eventually. I motioned for him to come in and Natasha stood up, placing a hand on my shoulder briefly.  
"I'll leave you two alone." She said before leaving the room.  
"Are you feeling better?" Thor asked, and I could hear the slight awkwardness in his voice. I shrugged.  
"Better than I was. Still not back to being my normal fabulous self, but I'm guessing that once I know what happened during the black out, everything will make more sense about why I feel this crap." Thor nodded, looking around the room for a moment. He looked so awkward, just standing there, and I couldn't help but smile slightly. For such a big guy, he sure could look like a young kid being told off by his parents or something like that.  
"Sit down, would you? Looking up is giving me a headache." I muttered, shifting to my computer chair and starting to type away, attempting to succeed where Natasha had failed – not that I thought I would. It was just something to keep my mind and hands busy.  
"How are you coping?" Thor asked as he sat down. I didn't bother looking around at him.  
"I thought I pretty much answered that.""You answered if you were feeling better. Not how you are coping."  
"Pretty much same thing aren't they?"  
"I am referring to how you are coping about finding out you are part Asgardian." I didn't respond, my fingers no longer typing away on the keyboard. I looked down at them, not wanting to really say anything. In truth I'd been trying not to think about my relationship with Thor, it still confused me too much. Eventually I looked around at him, my head still half ducked down.  
"I could ask you the same thing about how you're coping with finding out about me being your half sister." I responded. Again, there was silence. This really was an awkward conversation for us to be having, but we probably needed to have it, especially considering we hadn't actually talked about it since we first found out, simply started to avoid each other.  
"It still confuses me." He admitted and I nodded.  
"There's your answer then. I don't feel any different to how I did before, yet everything has changed. Everything I thought I knew was pretty much a lie, and now everything comes crashing down and I get a shit tonne of answers, which I never knew that I had to ask the questions for. I don't know how you feel, finding out that your dad was kinda unfaithful to your mum." It felt awkward saying that, and it was obvious that this was something that Thor hadn't wanted to think about, but it was equally obvious that he had. I shifted uncomfortably in the silence that followed, standing up and heading over to the window so I didn't have to look at Thor anymore.  
"Where did you get those marks on your back?" He asked suddenly and I frowned, turning around and looking at him in confusion.  
"I don't have any marks on my back."  
"You do. Runes." He said, standing up and walking over to me, taking me by the shoulders and turning me around so my back was to him again, moving my hair so it fell over one shoulder rather than down my back. For some reason I was scared, not exactly sure what of. Thor muttered something in a language I didn't quite understand, and I looked around at him, still confused.  
"What did you just say?"  
"Kaunaz, hagalaz, laguz, jera, and the Valknut, the symbol of Odin." As he said these, he touched the supposed marks on my back, first the one most to my left, then one along from it, then the one second most to right, then the one most to the right, and lastly the one in the centre of them, slightly higher than the rest. They ran across my shoulder blades, from what I could feel of where Thor's fingers touched my skin. I swallowed.  
"What... exactly... does that mean?" I asked, not sure if I wanted and answer.  
"Fire, air, water, earth, and our father."  
"I know who Odin is," I snapped, spinning around to face him, "But why the hell would I have these marks on my back?" I asked, slowly calming down. Thor frowned for a moment.  
"When you attacked Steve and the others, and myself, you did not have to touch us. Evidently you have powers."  
"You think that these... runes... represent what my powers are?" I could hear the slight shake in my voice, and I assumed that Thor could too. He nodded.  
"And your heritage."  
"I have never seen these marks before. Why would they suddenly appear now?" Thor shook his head.  
"That is something I cannot answer."  
"Wow, lota help you are." I grumbled, crossing my arms and suddenly really wanting to get a jersey on. It wasn't right. Having marks suddenly appear on your back... to say the least it gave me the creeps. Especially since it was so soon after I had a blackout. And Thor arriving, and finding out I was part alien. Everything was starting to get so overwhelming. To make matters worse, Stark chose that moment to appear in my doorway. He knocked politely then stuck his head in the room.  
"I need to talk to Tyra." He said. I frowned. It must be bad if he was calling me Tyra, not Tyrant.  
"Shit." I muttered, moving over to my bed and sitting down again, knowing that soon I would be grateful for it. I looked at Stark with resigned expectation, Thor staying where he was, also watching Stark.  
"It might be easier to show you." Stark muttered, not seeming too keen on telling me, even seeming slightly reluctant to be in the same room as me.  
"That good, huh?" I asked, rather sarcastically.  
"Better." He replied in an equally sarcastic manner. I motioned to my computer and Stark sat down, pulling up the feed and replaying what he'd seen. I watched with dull eyes as the events of the past night were replayed, vaguely remembering the pain I had felt. As I watched I could remember more of what happened, which was strange, and I felt sick all over again. It was the pain that I remembered most, straight into my brain. Someone sat on the bed next to me and placed an arm around me, but I hardly noticed it because I was too busy watching the replay of what had happened. Stark watched me closely, probably to see how I'd react to what he'd found. Once the replay was finished I looked at him and shrugged, still feeling sick. I probably looked as bad as I felt.  
"What was I supposed to see?" I asked. Stark turned around and zoomed in on the computer screen, then replayed the feed again, pausing when the me on the screen had finished typing away. I covered my hand with my mouth. I couldn't help it. Even Thor tensed slightly. Stark removed the picture from the screen and crossed over to me, taking my free hand in his – rather cautiously.  
"I'm sorry, Tyra." He whispered. For a moment I couldn't talk, struggling to even comprehend what I'd seen.  
"Hydra?" I asked eventually, lowering my hand again.  
"That's what it said." He replied.  
"It's Hydra who's controlling me?" As I recovered from the shock of what I had seen my mind started to work out why I would have deleted those files. Did Hydra not want me to find Barnes? Or was it that they did want to find Barnes, and I was hiding him the only way I could?  
"Either that or someone who wants to frame Hydra." Stark replied.  
"When would they have gotten the chance to implant Tyra with the technology required to control her?" Thor asked, looking at Stark.  
"When I was fourteen. It was just before my first black out. Walking home from school, I remember feeling like someone was following me. Then nothing. That'll be when they got me."  
"There's something else, isn't there?" Stark looked and sounded almost hopeful. After a moment I looked at him, still frowning slightly.  
"Why would Hydra hurt me? I mean... why would I wake up and feel like I'd been through hell and back? If they wanted me to delete the info... then they wouldn't have hurt me. How could I have typed out 'Hydra' if they had full control of me?"  
"You think you have the ability to resist whatever technology it is in your brain?" Thor sounded mildly unsure, and I glanced at him, then looked back at the screen, at what I had typed.  
"Can't think of any other explanation. I mean, it has been in my head for the better part of nine years. Maybe I worked up some kind of resistance simply because it's been in my head for so long?" I shrugged, "Bio isn't my forte. Tech is, and I'm sure if I had a better look at this stuff I'd be able to sort it out... but as it is, I have no clue. And there isn't a hell of a lot known about the brain, anyway. I don't know," I sighed and rested my head in my hands, rubbing my eyes, "Probably just clutching at straws."

* * *

He flew back into his physical form, gasping for breath and looking around, his blue eyes wide, tired, ever so slightly afraid, but also triumphant. He laughed and looked around at his boss. He raised his eyebrows slightly and leaned forward, pulling against his restraints.  
"She knows." He taunted. The same man who ordered him to be reprogrammed slammed his hand hard against the desk, fury in his hard brown eyes. For a moment he just stood there, hunched over the computer monitors and piles of paperwork before slowly turning around and looking at his pet Entity.  
"How much does she know?"  
"That you're controlling her. That she can resist you."  
"What does she know about the Asset?"  
"I'm not psychic." The Entity scowled, his blue-tinged-black hair falling in his eyes. His boss stepped forward, placing his hand around the younger man's throat and squeezing ever so slightly and forcing his head back.  
"You can't protect her."  
"She doesn't need me to. She knows about her powers." The Hydra agent raised one of his eyebrows and stepped back again.  
"That's news to me," He muttered, turning to look at a young woman standing in the doorway while the Entity silently cursed himself and the control that Hydra had over him, "Send in Herron. He needs another top up," The woman nodded and moved to leave the room, "Oh, and send Kuznetsov to retrieve our little Schönheit. I think it's time there was a family reunion." He smiled wickedly and turned back to the young man, looking rather triumphant as the woman left the room.  
"You're one sick, twisted, son of a bitch." The Entity growled. His boss shook his head.  
"No, I just see the world as it should be." He replied, leaning back against the desk, an overly smug expression on his face. Perhaps this mishap would work in their favour after all. Not only would they get the girl, but they could get the Asset back. And they might have the chance to remove one Steven Rogers from the equation once and for all.


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

I sat in my room like I was a child waiting outside the principle's office, waiting to hear just what kind of punishment I was going to get or something like that. Tony was just telling Steve and the others about my relationship with Hydra, which I could only imagine was going as bad as either of us could expect. Thor was also in there, probably telling them about the runes. Elemental. That was me. Did that mean I could create these things out of nothing, or just influence what was already there? After a moment I stood up and looked at my hand a moment before holding it out in front of me and closing my eyes, not entirely certain what I was doing. I have no idea how long I stood like that, but eventually I gave up, lowering my hand and opening my eyes, which made me stumble backwards, falling onto my bed in shock. The room looked somehow different, not that I could really put my finger on why. I closed my eyes again and it seemed like there was something alive in the room. For the fun of it, I stood up again and tried to find my way around, seeing if I could get to the bathroom. Surprisingly, it was somehow very easy, like there was something different where there was an object or a wall or something. Then it dawned on me. The air in the room. I was connecting to it on some level or another. After a moment I raised my hand, palm facing up. The wind in the room picked up and I opened my eyes, watching in astonishment as objects in the room were knocked over in the wind that I had conjured up. Slowly I lowered my arms and looked around, feeling a tiny bit more tired. Evidently my powers took energy. Well, good to know there were some limits to my power. I grinned, holding my hand out to the side and summoning up the wind again to see what I could do. Instead of hearing the door open, I felt a slight change in the air flow and looked around in time to see Sam opening the door. When he saw what I was doing he looked shocked and slightly amazed. Alright, more than slightly amazed.

"How are you...?"

"I honestly have no idea." I laughed, once again lowering my hands. Sam shook his head and closed the door behind him as I headed back into the main room. He sat down at the chair in front of my computer and I sat down on my bed, legs crossed in front of me. I looked completely relaxed, but I was slightly on edge.

"I presume that everyone knows about... you know..." I didn't want to say it out loud. Thinking it was one thing, but saying it out loud seemed to make it more real. Sam nodded.

"To say the least Steve isn't very happy with this."

"He's not the only one." I muttered, looking at my hands.

"We're going to fix this."

"Mmhm. So everyone keeps saying. But what are you gonna do? Wipe out every Hydra agent and base on the planet? Look how that turned out when you tried that before, Sam."

"Alright, so you might have a point."

"Might? I reckon the best plan is to take me off world. They control me with radio waves or something like that, yeah? Doubt they could reach me if I was on Asgard."

"Leave behind everything and live with Norse Gods?" Sam looked rather incredulous, but I just shrugged.

"About time I met my dear daddy, isn't it? I mean, I have a whole other heritage that I should learn about and experience, don't I? And I'd actually be free from all this mind control and so forth, quite possibly the Entity, too. So far, I'm not seeing a down side. Besides," I grinned, "Where else am I gonna learn how to control my awesome powers?"

"You don't have to keep a brave face on."

"Yes, Sam. I do. Because if I don't then I'm not going to be alright. And I need to be alright. If only to rub it in Hydra's face that they can't control me all the time. Anyway, let's talk about something else, shall we?"

"Like what?"

"I dunno... fluffy rabbits and kittens? You think they have those on Asgard?"

"I did not picture you as the fluffy rabbits and kittens type." Sam laughed and I grinned, shrugging.

"I prefer cats to dogs. It was always an issue back at home when I was younger, I wanted a cat because I'm a bit scared of dogs. However, Dale was scared of cats for some reason. Both of us wanted a pet, but we could never agree on what."

"Why are you scared of dogs?"

"Got bit by a wolf hound when I was a young girl. Right wrist has never been the same again. Kinda funny in a completely not funny way. The god I was sort of named after, Týr, one of his hands was bitten off by the supposed son of Loki, Fenrir, a giant wolf. Good story, that one. Was my absolute favourite when I was around... eight years old? I think?" I wished I had a camera when I actually focused on Sam's face, "Not what you expected to hear?"

"An eight year old kid liking the story of someone's hand getting bitten off by a giant wolf? No, not something you expect to hear."

"Well, surprisingly, quite a few of my favourite stories were to do with Loki. In Norse mythology he's an interesting character. It's also interesting how people in myth are different to them in reality. As far as I know, in reality, Loki doesn't have any children. I never asked, and I doubt any of the Avengers did either."

"I'd hate to know what his kids would be like." Sam said, wincing slightly at the thought. I thought for a moment, smirking ever so slightly.

"Well, there's the giant wolf, Fenrir. According to some sources he was actually raised by the Gods, he was so big, they hoped that if they raised him they could keep him under control. Didn't quite work out and they ended up trying several times to chain him up so he wouldn't wreak havoc upon the nine realms. Leads into how Týr lost his hand. Then there is Hel, goddess of the underworld. Not a nice woman. Usually portrayed as indifferent or greedy to what the living and to what the dead need. Not often getting proper stories told about her, only mentioned in passing. And Jormungand, otherwise known as the Midgard serpent, so large that supposedly his body wraps around the entirety of Midgard." Sam raised his eyebrows and I shrugged, feeling quite pleased with myself. What I'd said wasn't necessarily true, I was only quoting information from one source, and there were so many versions of different tales out there that it's hard to tell which are right and which aren't, but that didn't change how impressed Sam looked. Or at least, I thought he looked impressed. That or utterly bewildered. Or feeling a bit sorry for me.

"You ever been told you're a nerd?" He asked and I laughed.

"More times than I can count, I'm afraid. But I'm surprised you're only just working this out." Sam shook his head as though I was hopeless, a small smile on his face.

"Realised it ages ago. Only just got round to commenting."

"Ah, yes, everyone's excuse to save face."

"So what happened to the dog that bit you?" Sam asked, turning the conversation away from my nerdiness.

"No clue. Sure, I don't like dogs, but I didn't want it to be put down, so I don't really think anything happened. Might have and I just don't know about it, I never asked, no one ever told me." I frowned when something appeared behind Sam, slowly shifting my weight so I could leap up if necessary. In truth, I hadn't seen the Entity since it attacked me, so why was it showing up now? A couple of seconds later and something in the main building exploded, making the building shake. I fell off my bed, Sam fell off his chair, and then got knocked out by the Entity. I forced myself to my feet and summoned a wind, part of me doubting that it would do any good, but I wanted to try. The Entity didn't move, just watched me. Why wasn't it doing anything? Then there was the sound of gunshots and I looked at the door, taking a couple of steps back, edging towards the window. Who knew, maybe there would be a way to climb out and find my way down from there? Huh, dangerous manoeuvre and I'd probably die because of it. But I had no clue what was going on, and it was probably the safer of the two options I had. The Entity must have realised what I was planning because it made its way towards me, then placed itself between me and the window... just as my bedroom door opened and a small group of people in tactical gear burst in. I wasn't entirely certain about what to do, so just commanded the wind to pick up and engulf them, though in retrospect I should have simply removed the air around them and let them suffocate. Unfortunately, I didn't think of that, and instead the intruders managed to force their way forwards, a couple of them firing at me. I could have sworn I was going to get killed, but that is far from what happened. Something stopped them, they seemed to hit an invisible wall. As soon as the intruders noticed this they lowered their weapons, surprise visible on the parts of the faces I could actually see. I lowered my hands slowly, watching to see what their next move would be.

"Let me talk to her." Someone said, someone I hadn't seen yet. But somehow the voice seemed vaguely familiar. Russian accent, that much I could tell. It was like I could almost remember them, but something was blocking it. A pesky bit of technology that I was starting to get all too familiar with. I scowled as the new person entered the room, a man, a bit shorter than Steve. He had brown hair and grey eyes, a rather roman nose, and he seemed to be the leader. He smiled.

"Thank you, Schatten," He said, looking past me at the Entity, "You may go, but not too far." Russian who could speak German. At least, I was fairly certain it was German. No clue what it meant though. I looked around at the Entity as it slowly faded out of existence, then looked back around at the intruders.

"Who the hell are you?" I snapped, fingers twitching by my side. I wanted to be ready in case anything went wrong. In the background I could still hear the sound of people fighting, and I assumed that some of my friends weren't as unconscious as Sam who was still on the floor. The leader smirked.

"I didn't expect you to remember me." He said.

"Oh, I recognise you. Just don't know who the hell you are. Only thing I can think of is that you had something to do with the piece of tech that's in my brain. Good job, by the way. Very clever. Wanna tell me how it works?"

"Oh, Schönheit, I'm not as green as I am cabbage looking. If I told you how the technology works, then you would find a way to stop it from working in a mere matter of seconds. There was more than one reason we chose you."

"Perfect. I feel so loved." I scowled. What the hell did 'Schönheit' mean? Why were so many of the bad guys Russians or Germans? That had always confused me. But, I was getting distracted. Distraction wasn't very good right now.

"You can stop thinking of ways to stop me. Do you know why?" The stranger asked.

"Do enlighten me."

"Because you cannot. All I have to do is press a button and you will be under my control. You would willingly walk out the front door with me." He smirked and I couldn't help it. I smirked right back.

"Well, that probably isn't true. If you could do that, then you wouldn't be having this conversation with me. You wouldn't have commanded a full scale attack on this tower, and you wouldn't be standing in front of me right now, having this conversation. You would have simply high jacked my brain and commanded me to walk out the front door, probably taking out a couple of the Avengers on the way. Therefore, control over me is limited, which tends to imply that you wouldn't be able to simply 'press a button' and make me walk out the front door with you," I crossed my arms, "You still haven't answered my question about who you are."

"I'd almost forgotten that you had an attitude. Been so long since I saw it."

"Still not answering my question, idiot." I snapped, trying my best to stall so that the others could get in here. I doubted that I could take these people on my own.

"Kuznetsov. Nikolai Kuznetsov."

"Not as cool as Bond, which is who it sounded like you were trying to impersonate." Kuznetsov chuckled, walking forward, stopping too close for my comfort, almost getting right in my face. I unfolded my arms and held my hands ready in case I needed to summon the wind. He shook his head.

"You do not know your potential."

"Oh, I think I have a reasonable idea."

"No, you don't. You have no clue the power you have within you. But I do. And I can help you unlock it." It was obvious what he was doing. And he was pretty good at it too. Sounded like he had experience with manipulating people. I snorted.

"I think you don't realise who my brother is. I suspect that you wouldn't be able to help me as much as someone who is essentially a god could."

"They would hinder you, they are afraid of what you could become. Ever wondered why your father has stayed out of your life for so long?" I had to admit it, that was something that had been bothering me a bit of late. The only thing I could come up with was that he didn't know about me, but even that I could find flaws in, such as Heimdall. You know, the so-called 'Shining God' who could see pretty much everything in the nine realms? Yeah, he was sure to have known about me, so Odin would have known too. The other reason for Odin not letting me know about my heritage was probably to try and protect me, let me lead a normal life. That worked out so well, didn't it?

"If you're referring to Odin, then I'm glad he stuck out of my life. He's not my dad. He never was, and he never will be. My dad is dead."

"You're referring to Raymond Jones, of course. The man who raised you as one of his own. But they always seemed to treat you a little different, didn't they?" Again, he had a point. They always treated me like I was fragile, needed to be looked after more, there were things Dale could get away with that I couldn't. I scowled.

"If you're trying to persuade me to walk out with you of my own free will, you're going to have to try harder than that." Kuznetsov smirked.

"I wasn't trying to persuade you. I was trying to distract you." I frowned and turned around just in time to see the man who was shoving a needle into me neck. A couple of seconds later I felt my legs go from underneath me, then the world return once again to blackness. That seemed to be happening to me a lot lately.

* * *

 **No clue if I got the German words right, Google translate isn't always to be trusted. Can't even remember if I used Google translate, but anyway! Not sure of I got them right, hope I did. Hope you enjoyed the chapter!**


	12. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Steve was the first person to get to Tyra's room after handling the intruders, taking in the empty room and hitting the door frame harder than he had intended to, thinking all manner of crude words, though he didn't say any of them out loud. He rushed forward when he spotted Sam on the ground, just coming round and shaking his head slightly to try and clear it.

"What happened?" Steve asked, urgency in his voice.

"I don't know. Was knocked out after the explosion." Sam replied, his voice groggy, sounding like he was struggling to think straight.

"Where's Tyra?" Clint asked when he reached the scene a couple of seconds later. Neither Steve nor Sam replied, not sure about that themselves. Clint cursed, heading over to the window and looking out it, seeing if he could spot anything that could explain where Tyra was. The chances that she was taken were fairly high, considering that someone was watching her and controlling her actions. It was also highly possible that she had been controlled, so had gone with whoever it was without any argument. Which would hint that the intruders were Hydra. Terrific.

"I might be able to track where she is using the tech that Hydra put in her head." Tony said once everything had been explained to him. Steve nodded.

"Do it."

"Only problem is that they might be able to tell if I do that."

"If you don't, then Tyra will be in a shit load of trouble." Clint snapped. No one really knew about his relationship with Tyra and her first foster family aside from Natasha, who was standing in a corner, deep in thought. Banner was looking at the computer, half wondering if Tyra might have had time to leave them a message of some sort.

"I think I might have something." He said after a moment, everyone looking around at him, Tony half way to the door.

"What?" Steve asked, slightly hopeful. Banner looked around at him.

"I think Tyra might have found a way to contact Barnes." He said, Steve crossing the room in a couple of steps and peering over Banner's shoulder.

"Do we know where he is?" He asked.

"I don't even know how Tyra would have left this message, but I suspect this would have been hard enough to do without someone else noticing. There's nothing about where he is, but we might be able to track the number." Steve looked around at Tony, who nodded.

"I'll run a trace while I'm searching for Tyra." He said as he left the room.

"Why did they wait this long to get her?" Natasha asked suddenly, "What changed?" Everyone looked at her and Thor frowned.

"She discovered her powers as well as who her father is. Maybe it's related to that?"

"We also found out who's controlling her. Something tells me Hydra wouldn't be too happy about that." Clint growled, counting out his arrows.

"But why now? And why go through so much effort?"

"Tyra was starting to wonder if she was working up some kind of resistance to the technology in her brain. Perhaps she was correct?" Thor suggested. Natasha nodded.

"Makes sense. If they can't control her then they would want to find a way to remedy that as soon as possible. They'd also probably wipe her memory of all of us so that she couldn't find out who was controlling her again, so no one could actually fix her." No one looked too happy about this. Thor went to the door.

"Where are you going?"

"I need to talk to Heimdall. If Tony cannot find where Tyra is, then chances are Heimdall will." He said as he left the room, no one stopping him.

"What will they do if they get full control over Tyra?" Banner asked.

"Probably anything they want. She's not exactly helpless, even if she didn't have powers. She's amazing with technology and she's one of the best snipers I know. They'd probably continue using her to kill people."

"We need to get her back." Steve growled. No one said anything. If Hydra got full control over Tyra, there was no telling what they could do, considering she almost single handedly took out all the Avengers in one go. Things weren't looking so good at that moment.

* * *

He looked over at the phone as it started ringing, a small frown on his face. Why would someone be phoning? No one knew that he was even there. All the same, he picked it up and held it to his ear, curiosity getting the better of him.

 _"Hey, Buck. It's Steve."_ The voice on the other end said. Bucky frowned. He knew that name, though it was still a struggle to really understand why. There was something familiar about it. For a moment neither of them said anything, then the man on the other end sighed.

 _"Look, I know you're probably still struggling to remember me, but right now we really need your help,"_ Bucky still didn't say anything, _"A while ago you were in a Hydra base looking for something, and a woman helped you find it. She's a friend of mine. And Hydra's got her. If they have her then there's no telling what they can do, no telling what they're going to do to her. She's the one who managed to track you down and gave us this number. We're not entirely sure how. We could really use your help on this one, Buck."_ The person on the com... The person who helped him find the file on Phoenix, the boy he helped in collecting. She said to call her Aquilam, not that it would be her real name. She didn't seem stupid, and she didn't know him. So she couldn't trust him, not completely. Heck, to a certain extent he didn't trust himself.

"Where is she?" He asked.

 _"A Hydra facility in Wimberley, Texas."_

"I know it."

 _"So will you help us?"_ There was hope in his voice.

"No. I'll help her." Bucky replied, then hung up the phone, looking over at his miscellaneous weapons. He had wanted to stop using them, forget everything that had happened. But he couldn't. Someone had found him somehow, so he would have to move anyway. Before that, though, he had to help Aquilam. She had helped him, he had to help her. Then they'd be even, they could go their separate ways.

* * *

I looked around my small cell, trying to find a way out. Unfortunately, I got the distinct feeling I'd tried something like this before. It hadn't worked too well. I couldn't even manipulate the air in here, though I had no clue what was blocking me. There had to be something. Not that I could really see how manipulating the air around me would help, the only hole in the room was the key hole after all. It had been difficult enough to leave that message on the computer by solidifying the air above the keys I wanted to press, I doubted that even if I could manipulate the air I'd have enough energy to use it to pick the lock or whatever. Since there was nothing else to do, I turned around and inspected the small room I'd been thrown in. Small, maybe a couple of metres across and three metres deep. There was a plank of wood suspended against the wall with some sheets on it, only just big enough for me to lay on. It was quite dark in there, one light in the centre of the ceiling to illuminate the room. Aside from that the only object in the room was a bucket, which wasn't overly appealing. I pulled a face, sighing slightly.

"What the hell have I gotten into this time?" I muttered, glaring at the bucket like it was all its fault. At least I knew I was still somewhere in America. The travel time felt too short to be anywhere else. But, I could be wrong. It wasn't unheard of. The door opened behind me and I turned around to see who had arrived, wishing that I had a gun with me or something.

"I'd say that, from your point of view, you've gotten yourself into one heck of a mess." A woman said. She was reasonably pretty with a rather thick Texan accent, gold hair and blue eyes. Typical princess. Except, judging by the mad scientist coat thing she had on. If she didn't have something to do with science then she wouldn't be wearing it. I didn't trust it. Not one bit.

"Who are you?" I asked, pretending to be completely unimpressed. She smiled.

"Dr. Verdon," She replied, obviously taking the good cop approach to things, "I'm just here to make sure that there are no side effects to the tranquilizer you were given."

"I'm as fit as a daisy."

"So you seem, but I need to check on things that you can't see. So, if you don't mind, sit down and let me take some samples."

"Not happening, Buttercup."

"Look, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. It's up to you. But just so you know, the hard way isn't very nice." Dr. Verdon's smile seemed to get even sweeter, which I didn't think was possible. I smirked.

"Bring it."

"As you wish." Verdon leaned back out the door and beckoned to someone, but I didn't care to wait around to see who, launching myself forward and pushing her out of the way. I didn't have much of a plan, just to run. I didn't know where I was going, just knew where I wanted to get. Out of there. Somehow find my way back to New York, if I'd even left there. For all I knew I was trapped under McDonalds or something. Footsteps echoed down the hall behind me as I ran, which I had expected, but not wanted. They had the advantage of knowing this place, unlike me. It wasn't long before my pursuers caught me and slammed me against the wall. I didn't say anything, just scowled as someone prodded the veins in my arm, then stuck a needle in it.

"Got what you wanted?" I growled as I was turned around to face Verdon. She nodded, holding up the blood sample she had taken.

"Yes. Now that wasn't so hard, was it?" She asked.

"I don't like needles."

"Well, you didn't have to look at it. And it's all over now," Verdon looked at the men who were holding me by each elbow, "Take her back to her cell." She commanded, then walked off as I was dragged away. There was no point in fighting it. Both men were significantly stronger than me, and I knew it. So did they. Once I was back in my cell I turned around and looked at the two men.

"I suppose there's no chance of getting a book to read, is there?" I asked. Neither of the men replied, just closed the door and locked it. Since there was nothing else to do I just sat down on the plank I we given as a bed and stared at the door.

"Of course there isn't," I muttered, "Now starts the Age of Utter Boredom."

* * *

Bucky watched as the jet set down nearby. Probably the Avengers. It looked like the kind of thing they'd fly, probably provided by Tony Stark. But Bucky wasn't going to make his presence known to them. He wasn't there for them. Only for Aquilam. If Hydra had her then they would be using her for something. Experiments of some kind. They only took someone if they were important in some way or had potential. That said quite a bit about the girl. Although, this would have been a lot easier if she had told him her real name, not some phony code name that probably no one else used or even knew about. There was still one question that really bugged him about her, though. How had she found him? Not even Hydra had been able to find him after he went AWOL. So how had she managed it? Obviously she was smart, and that was dangerous in the wrong hands. Especially in Hydra hands. If they had the only person who had been able to find him, then they would find him, and he was not going back there. So Bucky crouched down lower and watched, waiting for the opportune moment to gain entrance to the Hydra facility. There wasn't much else he could do. His best shot would probably have been waiting for the Avengers to cause a distraction. He looked back over at the jet. Not Avengers. Maybe ex S.H.I.E.L.D agents who were working for Hydra. That was the next most probable option, what with a jet like that. Not that Hydra didn't have fancy gadgets. This just didn't look right to be one of theirs. The sooner the Avengers got there, the better. Who knew what was going on while they waited.

* * *

What it turned out was happening down in the depths below the ground was that I was busy getting prepped for active duty. In other words, my head was being cut open and the technology in my brain was being either replaced or fixed or upgraded. I didn't know, I was unconscious. The other thing that was happening during this utterly delightful experience was that a bunch of Hydra agents were closing in on Sergeant Barnes' position. In other words, they had known I'd left that message for the others, and had known that Barnes would have come to help me. I was bait. They wanted their Asset back, therefore they used me. Fun times, I tell you. Very fun times. Everything was going wrong. When I found out about all this, I was as less than impressed, to say the least, but because I'd just had my head opened, I was hardly in any position to argue with any of this. Instead I was confined to the slab that was my temporary bed, a raging headache preventing me from moving all that much. I'd swear that they didn't even bother to lock my door for a couple of days, only started to lock it again when I was able to sit up without puking. Maybe a week later I was up and about, though don't ask me how. You'd have thunk that someone who had brain surgery would have been in worse condition than I was, so I assume they had some pretty powerful drugs that they had been giving me to get me in working condition sooner. Then someone came a knocking at my door, unlocking it and gently taking me by the arm. I was still hardly strong enough to fight back.

"What do you want now?" I groaned. Dr. Verdon was standing in the doorway, smiling. Or, more accurately, smirking. I didn't like it when she smirked.

"There's something that my boss wants you to see."

"Well, that answers every single one of my questions in one foul swoop, doesn't it?" She didn't bother responding to my sarcasm, just motioned for the person helping me along to follow. So he did, dragging me with him, which simply kicked up another headache.

"What is it that your boss wants me to see?" I asked, trying to distract myself from the pain. Not that using my brain to distract myself from the pain in my brain was actually working very well. It improved my sentence formation 100 times over. Or something...

"You will find out."

"I don't like surprises that much. Unless you've gotten me a kitten. That'd be a nice surprise."

"Somehow I doubt he will have gotten you a kitten." The goon rumbled. He had quite a deep voice.

"What a shame. Here's me, been cooperating like a little princess, and I don't even get a reward for it. Still wanting that book, by the way."

"We aren't getting you a book about a hundred and one different ways to escape locked rooms." Dr. Verdon sighed, rolling her eyes.

"Then what about – "

"No."

"You lot suck."

"And you drive me insane every single time you go through a procedure." Dr. Verdon grumbled. This was news to me. I raised my eyebrows and watched her back, now more intrigued than ever about her. Not that I'd been interested in her before. Now I was though.

"You know me then?"

"Many of us do. You've been here a few times."

"Ah, that must be why it feels so much like home." I said, far too cheerfully for my own good. Dr. Verdon didn't reply, instead opening a door and standing aside so I would go in first. We entered a viewing room, a glass window overlooking a rather dull grey coloured room with a strange, upright weird version of a torture wrack in the centre with all kinds of cords and other adjustments attached to it. I froze.

"Wait... I know that thing..." I mumbled, forcing myself away from the man holding me upright and placing my hand on the glass, using it to keep me steady and upright. I looked around at Verdon, slightly apprehensive of what was to come. Somehow I just knew that it wasn't good. Verdon simply smirked, locking the door behind her, obviously making sure that I couldn't escape, even if I did find enough energy to run. I looked back around at the equipment set up in the room. There were several people dressed in lab coats in there, all fiddling with the equipment, making sure everything was in working order. It didn't look like it had been used for a while. Then someone else I recognised came on the scene, not that I could say why he was familiar.

"Who is that guy?" I asked.

"Emil Hauer." Dr. Verdon supplied.

"The boss." I whispered in disbelief. There were still some things I could remember, so long as I got the prompts. Which was just what Verdon had given me. A couple of moments later another person I recognised was dragged in. A man with dark hair, and (his more recognisable attribute) a metal arm. My eyes darted from Hauer, to the wrack, to Barnes. It didn't take much for me to realise what was going to happen. And it wasn't nice. Barnes had been so long without being wiped that this was going to be worse than it used to be. How I knew what it used to be like, I didn't know. I just did. I could remember what he sounded like when it used to happen, how much pain he must have been in.

"No... no, this can't be happening." I muttered.

"Oh, but it is," Verdon replied, in a rather soothing voice too, "Don't worry, it won't take too long."

"Stop this, stop this before it even starts. Please." I turned and looked at miss princess doctor torture person as Barnes got forced onto the wrack and locked in place. Verdon didn't even blink, so I turned back around and watched helplessly as the process started. I didn't even notice that the window around my hand was starting to grow moist, condensation gathering around it. All I knew was that the world was starting to spin, and that for some reason the equipment below wasn't seeming to work properly. Everything was on, the wipe should have started, but for some reason it wasn't. Then tendrils of water snuck around and reached out to the different people in the room, everyone except Hauer it seemed (who got out of there as soon as he realised what was happening), and wrapped around their wrists. Then they were on the floor, convulsing violently. Barnes just watched, not really comprehending what was going on. It seemed that the process had already done some damage.

"What are you doing?" Verdon demanded, but I didn't reply. I couldn't. If I opened my mouth I was going to be sick, and I knew it. Once I believed the process to be over, I drew my hand away. Nothing happened apart from the water tendrils falling to the ground and the men ceasing their convulsions on the floor. Then I stumbled backwards, exhaustion overwhelming me. But Barnes was safe. At least for now.

"Steve, you son of a bitch, you owe me big time." I muttered quietly, hoping no one else would have heard me.


	13. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

"Her powers have grown more than I thought." Hauer said as he watched the girl sleep in her cell. She was exhausted by her efforts to help the Asset, who was still struggling to come to terms with what he had seen. Only a minimal amount of the wiping had occurred, and the machine was needing to be repaired after the little stunt that Schönheit had pulled. Elementares Schönheit, the elemental beauty. So much power, and yet she was only just beginning to scratch the surface, only just learning of what she could do.

"She's still using more energy than she should, even for the tiny amount she used just then." Verdon muttered. Though she would never admit it, she did worry for the girl. Not that she really counted as a girl anymore, more of a young woman.

"That doesn't matter. What matters is how much potential she has. If we can find a way to access that power without her knowing, then I doubt even the Avengers could stop us."

"I wouldn't be so certain of that, sir. They're smart, and Tyra has been learning how to fight the technology. Even with the upgrade, there is no – "

"You're not paid to be a pessimist, Olivia." Hauer snapped, silencing the doctor. The girl stirred, looking around at the camera and frowning. This wasn't the first time she had noticed the camera, and she was always suspicious that someone was watching her. A lot of the time they were. Her eyes reflected just how exhausted she was, red, bloodshot with dark under eyes.

"Her friends will come for her." A new comer said as he stepped up behind them.

"You mean you didn't kill them all when you had the chance, Kuznetsov? What do I pay any of you for, you're all useless!"

"I thought you'd like to kill Rogers yourself." That placed a smile on Hauer's face. Well, smile is only a loose description. It was hard to actually classify the expression on his face as a smile.

"Good save, Kuznetsov. Good save," He muttered, turning away from the screen to face his employees, "I want her ready in case those pesky Avengers do show up. Do you understand?" He asked, glaring at Verdon. Slowly the doctor nodded, then headed off. She was bound to have something to help speed Tyra's recovery some more. Then Hauer turned to Kuznetsov.

"Make sure everyone is ready for when Captain America arrives. We must make them feel welcome here." Kuznetsov nodded and headed out a couple of seconds after Verdon while Hauer turned back to face the screen, Tyra still glaring up at the camera. He smirked.

"You don't realise how powerful you are, how powerful you can become. What you did today... it is only the tip of the iceberg. And I'll help you unlock the rest."

* * *

It had taken them longer than they'd wanted it to for them to actually pin down the exact location of the Hydra base. They'd known its rough whereabouts, but not exactly where. Or how to get into it. But now they had the information they needed, and they were closing in fast on its location.

"Stark, what's our ETA?" Steve asked, leaning on the back of Stark's seat.

"Any second now." Stark replied without hesitation. Steve nodded and looked around at everyone else.

"We all know our parts?" He asked. Everyone nodded, making sure they had all their things. Even Sam had opted to join them on this mission. Tyra was important, more so since they had gotten to know her. Steve looked back through the front of the jet, his face set with grim determination. This wasn't going to be easy. From what information they could get a hold of, there weren't only scientists in this base. For every scientist there were at least three military level personnel. Protection was very high, and chances of there being Enhanced were also pretty high. This was one rescue mission that could go quite wrong, especially when taking into consideration the fact that Tyra could suffocate them with a single glance, if that's what Hydra wanted. Which, all things considered, they probably did. The plan rested on Tyra being able to resist the tech to a certain extent.

"We're here." Stark said. Steve nodded.

"Take us in."

* * *

"They're here, sir." Hauer looked around at his underling, nodding after a moment.

"Bit later than I thought they would be, if I'm to be honest. Get Schatten, tell him to slow them down if he can. Preferably starting with Captain America." He looked over at Verdon and nodded as the underling ran off. Verdon didn't look too convinced, but she nodded and headed off to make sure everything was in working order for Schönheit. Field tests weren't exactly Hauer's favourite thing in the world, but if they had to be done then he could cope. It was a simple matter of whether his projects would. After all, the Phoenix wasn't yet ready. Too unstable. They couldn't exactly use the Asset again yet, still needed to be reprogrammed. Many of the enhanced weren't ready for work in the field yet, some of them could hardly stop using their powers they were so unpredictable. But the Schatten had proven himself time and time again. As had the Schönheit, though the big problem with her was maintaining control. If they couldn't maintain control then she would turn against them. Which was why they had a fail safe. Always so handy.

* * *

I looked up as the door opened, casually leaning back against the wall by my 'bed' as Verdon entered. She didn't look very thrilled about something, and of course I had to wind her up, simply because I didn't like her.

"Well, aren't we cheerful today." I smirked. Verdon chose to ignore me and proceeded to shine a damn light in my eyes. I flinched away and closed my eyes, screwing them tightly shut while I listened to the vague sound of Verdon scribbling away on her clip board.

"So what is it you want from me now? To dress up in a grass skirt and do the hula?"

"As entertaining as that might be, no." Verdon replied, looking at me curiously as I opened my eyes again, specially to glare at her.

"Then what do you want, Shorty?"

"I honestly don't see what gives you the right to call me 'Shorty', considering you're... what? 5'6"? And I'm 5'7"." She smirked and ticked another thing off her list, which I was starting to wonder if it was a bucket list. She seemed like that kind of gal.

"Ooooh, touché, madam, touché." I smiled and stood up to peer over the clipboard and try to confirm my ridiculous suspicions, but she folded it up to her chest, hiding it from me. I frowned. Something was definitely not right, this wasn't a routine check. Neither of us said anything, just watched each other closely. After a moment I walked past Verdon, then turned and looked at her again, folding my arms.

"So, are you going to tell me what you're wanting?" I asked.

"I'm supposed to prep you."

"Prep me for what?" Verdon looked at me, and I could have sworn that there was sadness in her eyes, or something to that extent. Sorrow. Pity. It didn't do anything to ease my nerves.

"Your friends are here."

"Oh, well you lot are screwed."

"Not really. Because they're going to be too busy fighting you to do anything to us." I closed my eyes and cursed myself, then looked at the ground and rubbed my head. There had to be a way to stop this from happening.

"Please... please don't do this." I asked, almost too quietly for even me to hear it. I looked up in time to see Verdon holding out a small black box with a red button on it. Of course it was a red button. Never press red buttons, they never have anything good. I shook my head, knowing exactly what was going to happen. Verdon pressed the button and I felt like I was falling backwards, though my body stayed completely upright. This was different. Things didn't normally happen this way.

"Schönheit?" Verdon asked, stepping forward. I felt like screaming abuse at her. This was strange. I was watching what was happening, but it was like I was a passenger in my own body. This wasn't proper. I couldn't even feel my body, I was only watching what was happening. Verdon said something else in German, something I couldn't understand. Clearly my body did though. It turned around and headed out the door, Verdon not stopping it. This wasn't good. I tried to force my way back into my body, tried to force myself to control it again, but it didn't work. If anything it just made things worse. I wanted to scream, to curse, to hit something, but I couldn't. Not while Hydra was controlling my body.

* * *

Steve was separated from the rest of the group. Well, a few of them were on their own. Sam and Nat were partnered, Banner was still in the jet, Clint had found some higher ground to keep an eye out for trouble from, and aside from that everyone was on their own. Maybe it wasn't the smartest idea, but how else were they going to cover all that ground? Steve assumed Bucky hadn't arrived yet, or if he had that he'd be watching and get into the base around about now to try and get Tyra out. He peered around a corner and quickly through his shield at a couple of Hydra guards who were standing in front of a door, looking rather alert. Not unusual, true, but Steve had to have a look anyway. Even if Tyra wasn't in there, he'd still have had to get past them. So he stepped over the unconscious men and opened the door, which was (surprisingly) unlocked. It was empty, as far as he could tell, which just made him even more confused. Why post guards on an empty room? The door slammed shut behind him and Steve whirled around to look. He could have sworn he was alone on the room, and the guards had definitely been unconscious. When he looked back around, Tyra was standing right in front of him. He sighed with relief.

"Tyra! You OK?" He asked. Tyra didn't respond, which worried Steve slightly. She didn't even look like she recognised him, which likely meant one thing. They were in her head, controlling her actions. Something moved behind him and Steve quickly moved his shield into position between him and his attacker. The Entity. No wonder he hadn't seen anyone other than Tyra. It was dark in this room, the Entity would have been essentially invisible. The Entity didn't stop there, continuing to lash out at Steve. Soon he was pinned against the wall, unable to move. Tyra just stood there, watching with unblinking eyes.

"Tyra, it'd be really great if you could help out right about now!" Steve growled, attempting to hit the Entity but having his arm go straight through it and instead getting its hand clasped around his throat, slamming him against the wall again. He looked over at Tyra, not saying anything. If she didn't snap out of this soon, then he'd be in a lot of trouble.

* * *

All I could do was watch and prevent my body from attacking Steve, and that took a ridiculous amount of concentration, especially for someone who'd had and equivalent of brain surgery within the past week. Or actual brain surgery. Anyway, my skull had been opened up and something put in my brain, so I guess that counts as brain surgery. Whatever, getting distracted. But I wasn't going to let anything happen to Steve that was caused by my body. That was something I wouldn't be able to forgive myself for. Then my arm started moving up. If I could, I would have sworn, but I couldn't. Steve didn't fail to notice this movement either, a grim look in his eyes.

"Ty..." He forced out and something in my head snapped and suddenly I could feel my body again, though I still didn't have as much control as I usually had. But it gave me the opening I needed to at least shift my concentration off Steve to the Entity and I reached into my pocket with my other hand. Hydra had given me a lighter, though I hadn't really understood until right now. My body knew what it was doing, even if I didn't. I clicked the lighter and then shot the flame at the Entity using my powers. It vanished with a small scream, whether it was a scream of fear or pain, I didn't really know. But something else clicked in my head. Dale. It had sounded similar to Dale. I don'the know exactly how I knew this, but I did. Then I fell to the ground, clutching my head as my head filled with agony, more than I had felt for a long time. Steve rushed over to me and placed his hands on my shoulders.

"Tyra!" He said, trying to make me concentrate on him.

"It hurts." I muttered back, forcing myself to look up at him. Steve didn't know how to reply, instead pressing a button on his com.

"I found Tyra, but she isn't in great shape." I didn't hear the reply, but I assumed that he would have gotten one. I forced myself to my feet and Steve held out a hand to steady me. I nodded my thanks then started stumbling towards where I had come out.

"Tyra! What are you doing? We need to get you out of here."

"I know who the Entity is," I turned around and looked at him imploringly, "Please, I can't leave him again." Steve frowned slightly, confused.

"Who?" He asked.

"My foster brother. Dale. He isn't dead. Steve, he's here somewhere. I can't just leave him," I paused, "Sergeant Barnes is here too." He needed to know. And it'd be a good way to make him hang around while I found Dale. It worked pretty well, because Steve walked over to me and together we slipped out of the room, me fighting to stay upright. It felt like I was receiving small electric shots right into my brain. The only thing I could think of to cause such a sensation was that the Hydra device in my brain was shorting out, which could have been caused by my resisting it maybe. I didn't know. How was I supposed to think while something was jolting my brain?

"Where do you think they'll be keeping them?" Steve asked.

"I'm an elemental, Rogers. Not a psychic. Somewhere I haven't been before, and probably somewhere away from each other. Aside from that, I'm open to suggestions." I paused, thinking for a moment, and Steve turned to look at me.

"What's wrong?"

"They tried to wipe Barnes. I stopped them, but it's possible that they'll be trying again, in which case I think I know where he is. There's no guarantee though and chances are the tech will still be broken from whatever I managed to do."

"Think you can get us there?"

"No clue. I was kind of out of it when they took me there and even more out of it when they took me back to my room. Chances are I'd just get us more lost," I rubbed the back of my head, "Might be able to find a way there if I could get to a computer and pull up a map of the base."

"You sure you're up for this?" There was concern in his eyes. I pulled a face.

"Hell no. My head hurts like crazy. But I'm not leaving until Dale and Barnes are out of here. OK?"

"Why have you got to be so damn stubborn?" Steve asked as I pushed past him and kicked the next door in, almost falling over afterwards, catching the door frame to keep myself upright. I stood still for a second, trying to stop the world from spinning and looked around as Steve reached out to support me as we continued making our way through the base. He held out an earpiece to me without saying anything and I nodded my thanks, putting it in and pressing the button to turn it on. I supposed I was pretty much one of the team now, maybe after all this I could actually become one of them. An Avenger. Ha, right... there was still the tech in my head to think about. While that was still there I was too dangerous to be an Avenger. Maybe someday, but not today. Today was just about getting me, Dale, and Barnes away from Hydra. That was all that really mattered.

* * *

 **Hey, again, not sure if the German means what I think it means, I only know English, tiny bit of French, even less Spanish and Dutch (as in, how to count in them). If I got it wrong, please, let me know so I can fix it. And thanks for the reviews, I'll also let you know now that I'm planning a sequel, which will have more about Phoenix, this mystery character who keeps being mentioned. Everything's coming to a head now, and I don't know how many chapters there are left, but I doubt there are many (still writing chapter 13). Hope you enjoyed! :D**


	14. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Clint's eyes narrowed as he listened to the conversation going on over the coms. Steve had found Tyra, good, but what was going on? He said she wasn't in great shape... what exactly did he mean by that? What had Hydra done to her now? Clint absently stroked the flights on the arrow he had knocked, keeping his eyes peeled for any signs of Hydra coming out to surround the team while he thought about the girl – well, he had to admit it, young woman – who was in there. They'd taken too long to retrieve her, he was certain of it.

 _"Hey, guys."_ Someone new said and Clint grinned. She sounded tired, but she was actually able to speak, so that was something.

 _"Good to have you back, Tyrant."_ Stark said.

 _"What's your current position?"_ Nat asked.

 _"Good question. Not entirely certain. Somewhere in the base. Ask Steve. He's actually been aware of his surroundings this whole time."_

"You might want to keep the talking to a minimum, guys. Don't know when Hydra's gonna hear you." Clint pointed out.

 _"Clint! Hey there, how's it going for you, Hawkeye?"_ Tyra sounded like she was forcing herself to be cheerful, then hissed in pain. It was almost too quiet for Clint to pick up on it, but he did. Nat probably had, too. It was questionable if anyone else aside from Cap, who was actually with Tyra, would have picked up on it.

"Better than it is for you. When are you getting out of there?"

 _"Soon as we find Dale and Barnes."_

"Dale?" This confused Clint. What did Dale have to do with anything? He'd been presumed dead for nine years, still no clue about who actually killed Tyra's parents and, they had thought, Dale. And Clint had searched pretty hard.

 _"Yeah. He's the Entity."_

"You're joking."

 _"Who's Dale?"_ Nat asked.

"Tyra's older brother. Good kid. How the hell could he be the Entity? And if he was then why would he be trying to hurt you? Tyra, you're making no sense. How do you know it's Dale?"

"I can't explain it. I just... I just know."

 _"If they have control over Tyra then they could just as easily have control over her brother."_ Sam stepped in. His reply was quickly followed by the sound of a fight, but it clearly wasn't a long one. After all, he and Nat were in the same place. There was almost no chance for the Hydra agents they had presumably been fighting.

"If suppose that it'd also explain why they never found his body. If he had shown signs of being an Enhanced, then they'd have jumped at the chance. But how would he have been an Enhanced without being previously experimented on?"

 _"We don't know how long Hydra knew about me before they made their move. It's possible that they were manipulating my powers and giving Dale his powers before they took me."_

 _"I think we should regroup, talk this over."_ Stark suggested.

 _"No time. They would have realised what was going on as soon as they lost control over me."_

 _"Which is why we should regroup, come up with a plan."_

"I'm with Tony on this one." Clint admitted, not at all liking the idea of Tyra being in less than great condition and going after her brother and Bucky, who were under the control of Hydra. They'd smash her, probably lock her up again and find a way to control her all over again.

 _"I'm not leaving until I know that Dale and Sergeant Barnes are safe, and that's final. I'll do it on my own if I have to, but we don't have time to regroup. And we certainly don't have time to argue about this."_

 _"She has a point, boys."_ Nat supplied and Clint scowled. As much as he hated to admit it, Nat and Tyra were right. There wasn't enough time to regroup, and Tyra was ridiculously stubborn sometimes. If only there was some way that he could persuade them that they were wrong, that they'd get Bucky and Dale out without Tyra, who could then go and get checked out by a doctor or something.

"Thor, what do you think about all this?" Clint asked, realising that the Asgardian had been silent through this conversation.

 _"She will not leave until she knows they are safe, she has said as much. I believe that it would be better for her health if Tyra does indeed stay and help."_ Thor replied immediately.

 _"That was something that I was not expecting."_ Tyra sounded rather surprised and Clint shook his head. That was one plan that backfired quite spectacularly.

 _"What's the plan then, Tyrant?"_ Tony asked.

 _"Ah... Hadn't thought that far yet, not exactly. Pretty much find where Hydra are keeping them then beat the crap out of the guards and get out. Leave the rest of the planning up to Steve."_ This wasn't going to end well. Clint could feel it. Something was going to go wrong, and he wouldn't be able to do anything to help. That was about the only problem with agreeing to watch his friends' backs. He was backup. He couldn't actually do anything to help if they got in trouble inside.

* * *

Hauer slammed the desk next to the computer screen, his face almost crimson with rage. It should have worked, she should have killed him! Verdon stood in the corner, her face slightly pale as Hauer turned on her.

"How did this happen?" He asked, his voice dangerously quiet. Verdon shook her head.

"I don't know, sir. She shouldn't have been able to – "

"Well, she did! She beat it, I thought you said she was too weak to fight the tech!"

"I said that she had grown a resistance to it, I never said that she was too weak to fight it. Either way, she's free. I told you she wasn't ready."

"You keep up like this and I swear, Olivia, I'll hand you over to the authorities." He grabbed her by the throat and started applying pressure, constricting the air flow, her face slowly turning a strange shade. Verdon struggled against his grasp, clawing at his hands with her fingernails, but it didn't work. If anything the pressure only increased. Hauer leaned closer towards her so his face was right in hers.

"That's if you're lucky." Then he released her and turned back to the screen, watching as the girl and that cursed Captain America made their way through the halls. The girl didn't look to be in good shape, which was something. It at least slowed their progress. Contingency plans were always a good idea.

"Makes sure you fix your mess. Start with getting the Asset and Schatten secure. I'll deal with the Avengers," Verdon didn't move, "Didn't you hear me, Olivia? Or did I just imagine myself giving you a direct order?" Now Verdon nodded, stepping backwards and leaving the room. Hauer pressed a button on a mic that was sitting on the desk. It was connected to only one other room, so he knew that Captain America and the rest of the Avengers wouldn't hear what was being said.

"Kuznetsov, it's time to move in."

* * *

I placed my hand on Steve's shoulder, almost falling over because I was about to be sick. I didn't understand why, but for some reason my head was even worse. Something was trying to block my powers again, but I could still feel them, bubbling just below the surface. It was almost as though instead of blocking my powers though, this was just angering them. Putting that with the migraine I had and suddenly it was as though my head was about to explode. I could hardly hear Steve, but I could see his lips moving. It was a shame I never learned how to read lips. Would have been really handy right about now. Then I felt it. Not just in the air this time, like I had with Sam, but now in the ground as well. Something moving. No, not just one something. A lot of them. Slower than what you would expect, and it felt lighter as well. I reached down into my pocket and drew out the lighter again, opening it and holding it ready. I'm not sure if I actually spoke, but I felt my lips move. I only hoped that I did actually tell Steve that something was coming. It's all I could do. Then I felt something else in the air. Something slight, but with a certain pattern to it. Not that I could tell what that pattern was, but it felt familiar. Slowly I felt my control seeping into the air, drawing water from it and working the liquid around a bunch of people. I could feel them, feel their body heat. So I attacked. I didn't even notice Steve being separated from me, drawn away to protect me from someone else who had shown up on the scene. Someone I couldn't sense. I just continued on slipping the water down the throats of everyone in my way, drowning them. Eventually my concentration wavered and I could feel my body again, could actually control it. Somehow I was on the floor, crouched low, right hand palm down on it. My head still hurt, but it wasn't as bad as before. I looked around, only now noticing I was alone in the hall.

"Steve?" I called out, rather hesitantly, not sure if speaking was quite the right thing to do right now. I ended up gagging and almost throwing up. There wasn't any point in trying to stand up like this, not without help, not when I was in this condition. After a moment of rest I moved my way over to the wall and used it to help me up. For a moment the world spun, but it stopped reasonably quickly. Once it had stopped I looked around again, trying to spot Steve.

"Steve!" I called out again, louder this time, "Steve, this is no time to be playing games." But I knew he wasn't. As much as I hated to admit it, something had happened. And now I was on my own. With a piece of technology shorting out in my brain. And my powers starting to all come to me at one time, which was leaving me exhausted. This wasn't good. When was anything good? When was the last time anything had really been 'good'? I wasn't even sure if I knew what that word meant anymore. I mentally kicked myself. This wasn't going to get anything done. I kept going, knowing that the plan hadn't changed. I pressed the button on my ear piece, cringing when it screamed, pulling it out and throwing it to the floor, cursing. Someone was blocking communications. Why couldn't Hydra be stupid, just for once?

* * *

Dale fell forwards as his shadow returned to him, gasping for breath. For once he was actually thankful for his weakness to fire. Because of Tyra gaining even limited control over her body, he was now free from Hydra's control. For now. If he played his cards right he could keep that control. Nine years he'd been waiting for an opportunity like this one, and he was finally getting it. One of the doctors – Verdon – walked into the room and stepped up to him while he struggled for air. Dale looked up at her, breathing heavily. Verdon was in Hauer's centre circle. There was no way he could trust her, and he knew that his window of opportunity was closing with each step closer she took. So he stood up, glaring at her, but he didn't say anything. So long as he didn't say anything, they might continue to think that he was on their side.

"Report." Verdon demanded.

"She regained control and used the fire. I could not maintain control over my form." Dale said, as deadpan as he could. Judging by the look in Verdon's eye, it wasn't quite as deadpan as it should have been. But she nodded, which confused Dale no end. She was Hydra... if she noticed that he was in control and not Hydra, then why was she going along with it.

"Make sure you're ready to move. I have been commanded to get you and the Asset to a safe location." She said. Dale didn't move. Then Verdon reached out and grabbed the object nearest to her and slammed it against another doctor's head. Dale cringed slightly as the rather heavy lamp connected, sending the doctor falling to the ground. But he didn't stand still for very long, kicking out at one of the guards, then grabbing the man's hand and twisting it behind his back before slamming him head first against the wall, slipping the gun out of his holster as he went, then pointed it first at the second guard, then at the third, pulling the trigger twice. Both the men fell down, holes in their heads. Then Dale turned the gun on Verdon, not trusting her at all.

"Put the gun down." She said, dropping her weapon and holding up her hands.

"I can't trust you. You're with them."

"I just helped you, you really think I work with them anymore?"

"Another reason I can't trust you. You've turned on one group of people already, what's to stop you from turning on me?" Verdon paused, then nodded.

"OK, yeah, I guess I do deserve that one. But we really don't have time for this conversation. Hydra wants to harness Tyra's powers. They aren't simply going to let her go."

"Should have thought of that before you had her taken here." Dale muttered, lowering his gun, his face expressionless.

"I know," Verdon sighed, "I wasn't lying when I told you I was ordered to get you and the Asset out of here."

"He has a name."

"Not one I was ever told and I've never had anything to do with him, never seen his file. Only yours and Tyra's."

"And I thought you were important to Hauer."

"Not as important as other doctors. I was in charge of you and Tyra, that's the only reason I was important. Now we need to get going. Now. There is no chance that he missed what just happened here." Dale nodded, bending down and grabbing the vest off one of the guards, putting it on. It offered a bit more protection than just his white t-shirt. After a moment he took a vest off another guard and chucked it at Verdon without saying anything. She just blinked, standing there for a moment before she slipped it on, nodding her thanks. When Dale held out a gun to her she shook her head.

"I'm a doctor. Not a soldier. I'm supposed to heal, not harm."

"You never seemed to have an issue with hurting people before. Look what you did to Tyra, to me, to who knows how many others. What you did is in many ways worse than being killed." There was nothing in Dale's voice, nothing to say how he was really feeling. It was like he was just a shell, empty of any humanity. And Verdon knew that he was right. He was only like this because of her. She could still remember when she first met him when she was new to Hydra, only 19 years old. Before she was a doctor, when it was her father working here. Dale had watched his parents die. And Verdon and her dad used that to get into his head, used it to gain his trust. Hesitantly she reached out a hand and took the gun.

"I thought you didn't trust me?"

"I don't. But I don't have the time to act on my doubts, and killing you here and now seems rather pointless."

"Good to know." Verdon nodded, watching as Dale headed over to the door and readied to open it, holding the gun in a position where it would be easy to hold it up and shoot at anyone who was Hydra. They'd turned him into a weapon. Hydra had turned them all into weapons. Verdon had thought they were doing good. It was only now dawning on her that she'd taken the wrong side.

* * *

Nat spun around, stabbing another Hydra agent in the neck then using them to launch herself into the next agent. Sam was busy shooting at people, switching to hand to hand combat when his guns were wrenched off him. Once the fighting had calmed down he turned to Nat.

"You good?"

"Yeah. You?" Sam nodded, looking around before bending to pick up his guns, slipping them back into their holsters. He pressed his earpiece and cringed as it started screaming in his ear. Nat had a similar look on her face as she removed her earpiece and looked around at him.

"Well this keeps getting better." She muttered.

"Tony was right. We need to regroup."

"That's not gonna happen. We have no clue where anyone else is, and without the coms we have no way of finding that out." At that moment the sound of running feet echoed downtown the halls. Nat and Sam shared looks.

"I vote we regroup with Clint, that way we've got a bit of back up at least." Sam muttered.

"Good plan." Nat nodded before ducking down a side hall, Sam following her. There was no way they were going to be able to fight off the small army of Hydra agents that were storming down the hall. Maybe they could have taken them out, but it probably wouldn't have been the best idea to try in case they couldn't and ended up getting in more trouble, giving the others more people to rescue. As much as both Sam and Nat hated to admit it, they would be of more help if they got out of there.


	15. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Steve headed down the hall, keeping an eye out for the man he was chasing, but there was no sign of him. It was like he'd simply vanished into thin air. He'd figured out a while ago that his com was useless, Tyra had said so herself. Not that she seemed to know what she was actually saying. She'd also said something about being surrounded, but it had been hard to actually understand her, she'd said it so quietly... and that was just before someone shot at her, which she didn't seem to notice either. Then a door behind him opened. He spun around and held his shield up, ready in case he got shot up. But nothing hit him. Cautiously he looked past his shield and frowned when he saw a young man in his twenties lowering his gun. The man had black hair with a slight blue tinge to it, and strikingly blue eyes. Beside him was a young woman, probably a similar age to him, who was obviously a doctor. She had her hand on his arm, which he didn't seem too happy about, and clearly she had been the one who stopped him from shooting Steve.

"Who are you?" Steve asked.

"Dale Jones," Was the reply, "I was there when Tyra attacked you the first time. I watched it."

"So she was right. You are the Entity." Dale nodded.

"We need to get going." The woman said. Steve looked at her and frowned.

"You haven't said who you are yet."

"Dr. Olivia Verdon. Former Hydra. Slowly learning that joining them mightn't have been the best idea. I'm a friend, not foe." There was worry in her eyes, and Steve was very tempted to not believe her. The woman peered around him, frowning slightly before taking a step forward. Then she looked back at Steve.

"Where's Tyra? She was with you, I know she was. I saw you two leave the room together."

"You were with Tyra?" Dale asked, obviously slightly hopeful.

"We got separated."

"Idiot! That's what they want, they know that she's weak, they're going to try and catch her again. They won't just let her go."

"She's stronger than I think you realise." Steve frowned, but Olivia shook her head.

"No, she's stronger than you realise. But her powers use her own energy, the more she uses them, the weaker and more vulnerable she gets. And currently they have more control over her than she has over them." All three of them turned around as someone got thrown into the wall behind them, Thor stepping out of a side hall, looking rather irritated. When he saw his comrades he walked over.

"Are you alright?" He asked, noticing the serious expression on Steve's face.

"We need to find Tyra."

"I thought you were with her?"

"Someone opened fire on us and she was in no condition to pursuit them." Steve explained. Olivia was shaking her head.

"By now she could be anywhere. You'd have more luck finding her if we get out of here where I can access an external drive, open a camera feed, and find her like that, or if I unblocked your coms or something."

"Sorry, but who are you?" Thor asked, looking at Olivia in confusion.

"Hydra." Dale muttered. Thor didn't look impressed.

"Former Hydra." Olivia corrected.

"Former by five minutes."

"Doesn't matter, can you find Tyra or not?" Steve asked. Olivia nodded.

"With the right equipment, yes." Steve looked at Thor.

"Looks like Tony's going to get his way after all."

* * *

I walked down the hall, keeping one hand on the wall at all times, keeping my eyes peeled for anyone else, friend or foe, either would have been nice at that moment. But there was no one, and the feeling that my head was going to explode simply kept intensifying. Soon I found myself in a place that seemed reasonably familiar and I frowned. Familiar how? There was just something about it... I opened a door nearby and pushed it inwards, heading into the room and looking through the glass window at the setting before me. The chair thing. But no one in it. No one was in the room at all. But it was a start. Gave me somewhere to at least start looking for Barnes, considering that he was the most likely to be nearby. Hydra wouldn't want to have to try and overpower him for a long distance, which would mean that he was nearby. Hopefully. I looked around and headed over to a cabinet that was standing in the corner. During my previous visit I hadn't actually noticed it, but now that I had I got the idea that there might be something useful in there, information about someone or something, I wasn't entirely sure. That was as long as it wasn't locked. Luck was on my side. Why would someone break into a cabinet, especially since no one was allowed in this room really? Stupid Hydra. I smirked, rifling through the folders, checking the name on each one to see if it was anything important, pulling out one with Barnes' name on it and shoving it under my arm before continuing my search, finding a file on me and Dale and taking them as well. There was one other file I took, one with the name Phoenix. Barnes had found one file on whoever Phoenix was, therefore there was a chance about them being important. The next trick was finding something to carry these files in, but there wasn't anything around that I could even Macgyver something up. I scowled, but there was nothing I could do about it, so I'd just have to carry the files. Not the smartest idea when a whole base of Hydra agents are looking for you, but there wasn't much I could do about it. I didn't exit the same door I entered, having noticed another one that would go down a set of steps and into the 'torture chamber'. That name suited it better than I cared to admit. Next thing I knew I slammed up against the wall. I looked up at Barnes, who was the culprit, holding me pinned against the wall. Mustn't have been the easiest thing in the world for him, I was so much shorter than him.

"Just the guy I was looking for." I forced myself to smile and Barnes frowned. I pushed his hand away, or more correctly, tried to push his hand away, then found myself grabbing hold of his arm just to keep my balance as another wave of nausea hit me, too much input flooding into my head as I could suddenly feel almost everyone one in the base. The next thing I knew I was sitting on the ground, Barnes looking at me with a slightly confused and worried expression.

"I'm good. We need to get out of here."

"How? You can hardly walk." Ah! He speaks!

"Didn't I just say that I'm good? Sure, I might need a little help, but I made it from about... I dunno... Wasn't paying attention to how far away. You worry about keeping Hydra away from us. I'll worry about how I'm going to walk," Barnes didn't look convinced, but he nodded, standing up and starting to walk away, "Ah... first, help me up would ya?" He looked around at me and I could have sworn there was a hint of a smile as he walked back and took my hands to haul me to my feet.

* * *

We made our way down the hall, me telling Barnes whenever there was someone nearby so he could deal with them quickly. But it was taking its toll on me, constantly using my powers and not being able to turn them off. It wasn't long before I collapsed again. Barnes looked at me and crouched down before me as I leaned my head back against the wall, feeling like I was about to throw up. It hurt, all that information going straight into my head.

"Look at me." Barnes ordered as I closed my eyes. Closing my eyes helped. At least that way I wasn't seeing all the air currents or whatever it was, at the very least it removed one of my senses from the equation. I shook my head.

"It hurts." I hadn't noticed that I was actually starting to cry from the pain, suddenly feeling and sensing the tears on my cheeks, which didn't help at all.

"Look at me!" He said again, more forcefully, and I opened my eyes to look at him, "What's your name?" I just realised that he'd never actually met me face to face, only heard me over the radio. Even then, I hadn't told him my real name.

"Tyra. But you... I told you to call me Aquilam when we first talked." Realisation dawned on his face, then it was replaced with a look of determination.

"No matter how much it hurts, you gotta keep going. Of it's just going to get worse."

"You think I don't know that? I'm being electrocuted straight into my brain, and I can feel where every single person in this base is. My brain is overloading, I can't... I just can't..."

"Then I'll help you. I owe you, remember?" I didn't remember, didn't see why he owed me. Couldn't understand what he was on about. He reached out and took my hand, helping me once more to my feet, but this time he didn't let go, just helped me along, made sure I didn't fall over again while I continued to be confused over what he'd said. What did he mean? I shifted my concentration away from that and closed my eyes, once again thinking about where the changes in air current were to try and figure out a way out of here as well as where all the Hydra agents were.

* * *

Steve looked around at the others after getting out and regrouping, having bumped into Tony on the way. There was still no sign of Tyra, and he'd backtracked his steps as best he could, but clearly she'd recovered enough to get away from there. He still wasn't so sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

"What's the plan, Cap?" Sam asked.

"I don't know." Steve admitted.

"I could go back in." Dale suggested, looking around at everyone. When Clint had seen him the older man had actually given him a hug, which was... slightly strange to Steve, to say the least. Now he objected to this idea that Dale was having.

"Absolutely not. You only just got out of that place, you ain't going straight back in."

"I'm not meaning me, exactly... If you lost went guns blazing, you're almost certainly going to end up getting killed. Or getting Tyra killed. If I go in as... What were you lot calling me? The Entity or something like that?" The others nodded, "Well, I might be able to find Tyra, get her out of there. Even if she can't see me then I'd still be able to keep an eye on her. That is, of course, if Hydra hasn't gotten their hands on whatever it was preventing me from watching Tyra a while back." He glared at Tony, who shrugged.

"You did try to kill her." He pointed out. After a moment Dale nodded.

"OK, fair enough." Steve looked at the doctor.

"You think he's well enough to do it?' He asked. Verdon shrugged.

"I'm not sure. He's been through enough and we've never been sure about what actually causes him to return to his body. Other than fire, of course. And if he's too tired or something like that... Chances are that he won't even manage to project."

"Wow, thanks for the faith, guys." Dale muttered.

"Alright, so if this doesn't work, we're going in. Together. While someone stays back here and watches Dale and Dr. Verdon." Steve said. Everyone nodded, except for Dale.

"If I can't get in there, then you lot going in is too dangerous. Understood?"

"Why is it too dangerous?"

"Hauer. Kuznetsov. Both of them are ridiculously smart, and both of them are as bloodthirsty as they are smart. Someday you're going to have to fight them probably, but... not today. Not on their terms."

"I know you have no reason to trust me, but... He's right," Verdon muttered, "If you fight them here, with the amount of backup they currently have, you stand maybe a snowball's chance in hell at winning. And your odds probably aren't even that good."

"But Tyra's still in there." Banner pointed out. Dale frowned.

"They'll want her alive. Her friend, too, assuming she's found him."

"Bucky?" Steve asked.

"Winter Soldier, Asset... Bucky, whatever you want to call him. Hydra will want them both alive, most likely. They'll want to be able to use them again to take you down."

"Well this just keeps getting better." Nat muttered.

"Oh, yeah. And you don't know the half of it." Dale replied, then headed over to the quinjet and sat down, resting his head back against the wall.

"And now we'll see if this actually works." Verdon said quietly. Clearly she had her doubts. But pretty much the whole plan relied on this, so Steve was thinking that I damn well better.

* * *

Barnes and I stumbled out a while later, not coming across too many other Hydra agents. After getting a reasonable distance away, Barnes set me down on the ground and then checked the area. For a moment I just sat there, enjoying the sudden absence of people, of movement... of course I could still feel them, but they were somehow quieter, more faint. I supposed distance was the reason. Now I could concentrate on the shocks into my brain. Mixed blessing, the absence of people. I could feel the others not too far away, and I looked up as Barnes returned.

"You should go." I said, well... mumbled. I was too tired to speak clearly. Barnes frowned, uncertain. We both knew I was right. He should go. There was no way he'd be able to recover properly if he was around Steve and the others... So much would be expected of him. So much that chances were he couldn't remember.

"I'll be fine."

"You said something similar earlier, remember?"

"Well, currently I don't have a sensory overload. If you go now the others won't find you. Trust me, would you?" He still looked unsure, "You've trusted me this far. Just trust me a little longer." After a moment he nodded, slipping away as if he was never there. Now was the fun part. Finding my way over to the others without passing out. I wasn't as fine as I made it seem. Looked like I was getting better at lying. I stood up and looked around, frowning for a moment when I spotted something familiar standing in front of me. Then I smiled.

"Hey. You out yet?" I asked the Entity, who I know knew to be Dale. He nodded, but clearly he couldn't actually say anything in this form. I let myself fall back to the ground, leaning my head on my knees.

"Wanna let the others know where I am? Don't think I can walk that far on my own." I admitted. Dale nodded and then his shadow vanished. I knew he was coming back though. I'd be safe soon.

* * *

"Tyra!" Dale called out as he found his way back to where he'd originally found her, kneeling next to her and quickly checking her pulse. It was well and truly faster than it should have been, and her temperature was up. And, as though that wasn't enough, she was unconscious. She wasn't when he'd found her... She must have been getting worse pretty quickly.

"Help me get her up." Steve said to Clint, and between them they managed to get her back to the quinjet reasonable quickly. Dale turned to Verdon, a steely look in his eye.

"You help her or I swear, you'll never help another person again." He threatened.

"You don't need to threaten me, Dale." She replied as she stood next to Tyra, who had been put on a bed in the quinjet for just this kind of purpose. Then she set about giving Tyra a more thorough check over, or as thorough as she could without her equipment.

"You know what's wrong with her?" Clint asked, clearly worried, while Tony sat down in the driver's set and the took off.

"Her powers activated all at roughly the same time. It probably has something to do with the combination of drugs we gave her and the tech in her brain, which, because of the captain, she was able to overcome. And now it's malfunctioning, and I suspect that it's also shorting out."

"In her brain?" Banner sounded worried about this.

"Yes. It's amazing she managed to stay conscious as long as she did. It's clear that her alien DNA helps her more than we thought." Verdon glanced over at Thor, who was trying to stay out of the way.

"Can you help her?" He asked.

"Maybe with the right tools I can remove the tech. That, at the very least, would help. I don't know if that would fix the problem, and then she's going to have to learn how to control her powers... if she survives this."

"She'll survive it," Dale said, "She's strong. Stronger than you lot ever gave her credit for."

"That I don't doubt. It's simply a case of whether she's strong enough. With all her powers activating at once, the amount of energy she would have used up in one go... depending on the combination of powers, it's quite possible that it would have killed any normal human. She survives this, she'll be damn lucky."

"Well, it's your job to make sure she survives," Clint threatened, pulling out one of his arrows, "She dies... you dies."

"I never pictured you as one for clichés, Mr. Barton."

"At the very least you would face Asgardian punishment," Thor growled, "Tyra is a daughter of Odin. If she dies, there is no knowing for certain the punishment you will face."

"I was wondering who her Asgardian family was," Verdon replied, then turned back to Tyra, "I'm going to have to operate on her brain as soon as we get back. That way the least amount of damage will be done. Can't promise that there will be no damage, though. I don't have my equipment with me, so I'm going to have to make do with whatever you have. But we might want to hurry." She looked at Tony as she said this.

"Going as fast as we can."


	16. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

For a while after I woke up all I could feel was pain. I didn't know how long I was out for, didn't know what had happened. One of the first things that I actually noticed was that all my hair was gone, all shaved off, presumably because of the operation I suspected I'd had (there was nothing jolting my brain, so it would make sense that the tech had been removed). I could have sworn no one actually realised I was awake, I still acted as though I was asleep, but they did. They just never said anything. Clearly they knew that my head was silently imploding and exploding simultaneously, which I did not understand how that worked at all. The first person I spoke to was Clint. It was just luck that it was him, he was with me when I felt well enough to have a conversation for the first time since waking up.

"So what happened?" I asked, my voice barely more than a whisper.

"We went to get you out and then everything went to shit."

"Great... Dale? Barnes? Are they OK?" I looked around at him.

"Dale's fine. No clue where Barnes is. Not even sure if he got out."

"He did. He helped me. But he had to go. Clint... how are the others?" I tried to sit up but failed miserably.

"Better than you are. We didn't even have a code green."

"Good. That's good." I closed my eyes as everything became too much. Clint gave my hand a gentle squeeze.

"It's good to have you back, Ty." I just smiled, giving his hand a weak squeeze back. I didn't have the energy for anything else. It wasn't long before I was asleep again.

* * *

The road to recovery wasn't a short one, unfortunately. Verdon was the one looking after me, which I didn't trust at all, but it wasn't like I had much of a choice. As soon as I was well enough to cross over to the other side of my room without help, I stopped lying in bed all day and actually tried to head into the main room... but Thor found me and took me back to my room before I could, scolding me for pushing myself too hard. Everyone seemed to be doing that and I felt like there was something they weren't telling me. I could hardly remember what happened that day, only remembering fragments. Like Barnes helping me to get out, me telling him it was better for him if he went. There were flashes of me and Steve trying to find our way out, but... Most of what happened I couldn't remember. It annoyed me. Then they got a shrink in. I was completely unimpressed about that, but Steve took me aside before I could get too annoyed.

"We just want to know if there is any damage that's been done." He told me in hushed tones.

"Surely if there was by now we'd know about it?"

"Please, Tyra. If you don't want to, we won't force you. But we just want to make sure you're OK." There was something in the way he said it that told me he already knew that I wasn't OK. And it confused me. I looked over to where Dale and Thor were standing, watching me. Both of them looked equally worried. It was weird, having both my brothers in one place. I looked back at Steve and nodded, rather reluctantly, then headed off into a quiet room, where the door was shut behind me, and I sat down to talk to the shrink.

"Now then. Could you tell me your name, please."

"You already know what it is. They would have told you." The look I got from the shrink wasn't unkind, but it was a little tired.

"I cannot help you unless you cooperate."

"My name is Tyra Jones."

"And, now old are you, Tyra?" The shrink started scribbling away on his note pad.

"I..." I frowned, "I'm... 23." Why had that taken so long? I knew how old I was, so why had I struggled so much?

"Do you know what day it is today?"

"Haven't looked or asked since I woke up. But I get the feeling it's a Thursday." The shrink looked up at me, noticing me frowning.

"Is something wrong, Tyra? Something you want to talk about?"

"Not particularly."

"Like I said, I cannot help you unless you cooperate. If there is anything you can think of – "

"Ask your next question." He sighed, then held up a photo for me to look at. It was a family portrait. A man, a woman, and two children, a boy and a girl. It was obvious who the boy was. He was the older of the two children had scruffy black hair that looked almost blue in the right lights. Dale. The girl had significantly more hair than me, considering my hair had been shaved off for the most recent of my operations and was just starting to grow back as darkish fuzz. The girl was me when I was around five years old, which would have made Dale about ten. The two adults... I knew who they were, but I couldn't remember them, couldn't put names to their faces.

"Do you know who these people are?" Mr. Shrink asked.

"Me, Dale... I guess that the adults are our parents... I know them..." Something was wrong, something was very wrong. Why couldn't I remember them? He held out another photo. This time of another couple, a man and a woman, no child with them. They seemed happy.

"And... these people?"

"Ah..." I rubbed my face, "Jane and Kurt. McInroy. They adopted me after my first foster parents died." The questions continued. They varied from 'who are these people' to 'what do you see in this image' and pretty much anything else you can think of. As the questions continued, it became pretty clear what was going on. There were some things that I had forgotten, people, places, objects... simple words that I knew the meanings of but couldn't for the life of me remember what they were. No wonder Dale and Thor had been looking so worried. Dale had probably already been starting to work that out. When I was still stuck in my room he used to talk about our parents and things we used to do... and then he'd look at me. I never understood that look in his eye. I did now. He was surprised that I didn't remember it myself and pipe up, adding to the memory. I didn't need the shrink to tell me what was wrong. When he did I didn't reply. As though Hydra couldn't have taken anything more from me... now I couldn't even remember the time I spent with my parents.

"I'll leave you alone for a few moments." I vaguely heard the shrink say, hardly noticing as he stood up and left the room. I looked down at the photos in front of me, picking up a picture where Dale and I were on a beach, the woman who I assumed was our mum was helping us make a sandcastle. I looked like I would have been about eight, which meant that Dale would have been about thirteen. Why couldn't I remember this? There wasn't really anything I wanted more at that moment. At least when Hydra had control over my body, I could remember my family. And now the only one I could remember was Dale. Jane and Kurt... they were my guardians, but they'd never really been my family.

* * *

For a few days afterwards, no one said anything about what happened with the shrink. Dale and Thor seemed to get along OK, though, so that was something. It was actually kinda funny watching Dale teach Thor how to make pancakes, which was something I was craving a little bit. I had no clue why Thor wanted to volunteer to help make the pancakes, but it certainly was great entertainment. Tony set up a camera and videoed the whole thing.

"You OK?" Steve asked, coming and sitting next to me while my brothers made the pancakes (which I was almost positive were all going to be burnt).

"Oh yeah, I'm absolutely..." I frowned slightly, "Fantastic, that's the word. You?"

"I'm not the one that had their brain opened up."

"Oh, you should, it's so much fun. Especially if you had tech shorting out in you brain! It's like going on a roller-coaster and then sleeping in the clouds."

"I think you can turn the sarcasm down a little bit." Steve smiled and I shrugged.

"Yeah, well... Dale was telling me about the time we went on a roller-coaster on his eighteenth birthday. Said he took me on it and while he was feeling utterly crap, I was having the time of my life," I turned to Steve, "I can't remember it. And I should. Because I would have been about thirteen. And apparently that was my first time on a roller-coaster. Why would I forget something like that?" Steve didn't say anything and I looked back around at Dale and Thor, who had gotten the batter all over him. I smiled.

"Now that you're not having the black outs anymore, what are you going to do?" Steve asked. I shrugged.

"Dunno. Don't particularly want to go back to Kurt and Jane, they'd just start sending me to more doctors and shrinks probably, see if there's any way for me to get my memories back. Though I highly doubt there is. But at the same time, I don't know what else to do."

"Well, you still need to learn to control your powers," Steve pointed out, and I looked back around at him, "And you're certainly a capable fighter. Not to mention you're free of Hydra. Can't see why it'd be a problem for you to stick around." For a moment I just sat there, stunned, then I grinned.

"You offering me a job, Capsicle?"

"If you want it." I held my hand out for him to shake.

"I'd be honoured to join your merry men." I replied as Steve shook my hand.

"Good to have you on board, Tyra."

"Thor!" Dale yelled, and both Steve and I looked around at them while Tony was dying of laughter. Somehow Thor had managed to get a fair amount of the batter in Dale's hair.

"Well, looks like I ain't getting pancakes." I laughed.

* * *

Somewhere in the middle of Texas, Hauer was yelling abuse at his men – including Kuznetsov.

"How dare you let them escape! And now there's no way to track them, you fools! You stupid, stupid fools! Why is it that I have to do everything myself?!" He screamed, his face turning an alarming shade of red.

"Sir – "

"No! Not another word from you, Kuznetsov! I've had more than enough from you." Hauer turned his back on the Russian, pacing back and forth.

"It might take an elemental to bring down an elemental." A young boy, maybe in his mid-teens, suggested. Hauer looked around at him. This boy was one of the few who actually survived the experiments. He had red hair that went to the middle of his neck, orange-brown eyes, freckles, and wasn't exactly short, not that he'd finished growing yet. He had a pair of goggles sitting on top off his head, tinted dark brown.

"What? Fight fire with fire, you say?" Hauer asked, making sure he understood what the boy was saying.

"Essentially, yes. She manipulates the elements... she doesn't create them. And that... That's where you get someone like me in to take her down."

"That is the stu – " Kuznetsov started.

"Shut up!" Hauer screamed at him, "The boy might have a point. Well done, Ryan."

"Thank you, sir." The boy nodded, a small smirk on his face as he looked over at Kuznetsov.

"Perhaps things aren't so bad after all." Hauer murmured, turning around and looking at the computer screens. After all, it wasn't over to the fat lady sang... and currently the fat lady was gagged and trapped in a cell. She wasn't going to be singing any time soon.


	17. Epilogue

OK, so you might be thinking "but at the start there was a whole thing about how the only reason there are super heroes is because they're supposed to be too stupid to run away", and yes... this is true. I did, and still do, have that perspective. Super heroes are too stupid to run away, in fact they're so dumb that they run towards the fighting. However, there is one thing that you are forgetting, or you didn't realise (that's OK, I'd struggle to realise it, too). Sure, I said all these things to insult heroes and gods and all that kind of thing, but...

I never said that I wasn't one of these idiots. In fact, I'm the dumbest of the lot. Well, maybe with the exception of Cap. He's pretty dumb sometimes. For example, he doesn't realise that I'm not exactly helping him find Barnes, like he asked... No, I'm not, and yes, I do feel ever so slightly guilty about it. He trusts me, but I owe Barnes. He said he owed me. I can't exactly remember why, but he said it. Sometimes I can remember, other times I can't. But even so. We're going through the same thing, probably, him trying to remember who he once was, forget what Hydra did, forget what he did... We'll probably never manage it, but the least I can do is give him time to at least try. And that means that I had to keep everyone away. Even Steve.

So there you are! All caught up, I guess. I'm an idiot, and now I'm keeping Steve away from Barnes. A little messed up, but yep. That's just the way things are.

* * *

 **Author's note: Finished! Thanks to everyone who reviewed and finished reading this whole thing, I really hope I didn't let you down and hope you enjoyed it. You guys are awesome :D**


	18. End of credits

**Hi guys! The sequel is up, but it's not under Avengers it's a Guardians/Thor crossover. Thought I'd let you know, and here's the end of credits scene because I'm not supposed to just have a notice without any actual writing. I know I've done it before, but I'll be a good girl this time.**

 **Ps: Sequel is Elemental Beauty: Last Guardian. Now please, enjoy this little fluff piece because that is all it is! If it even counts as that... I'm getting distracted.**

* * *

It was dark outside, not even the moon lighting up the sky. It was strange, seeing the city so dark... In every house down the street the only sign of light was the flickering golden glow of the candle. I watched them, silently, slightly calculating. Jane and Kurt were downstairs, I could hear them talking, but I wasn't paying much attention. The candle on my desk flickered playfully. I could see in my reflection in the window that my eyes were the same colour orange, I could feeling the fire's energy, could feel its excitement. Slowly I looked around at it, manipulating it into little shapes. A horse, a dragon, something resembling an eagle... I supposed that made it a Phoenix, the eagle being made of fire. Phoenix... who was he? I looked down at the file in my lap. There wasn't even a photo attached. On all three of the other files there were photos. Barnes in cryo, Dale strapped to a vertical bed thing, me as a fourteen year old girl, my hair in a braid falling over my shoulder... back then it was blue. I smiled slightly. What had I been thinking? At least back then I had hair. There was defiance in my eyes, but even I could see the fear in them. Sighing, I closed the files, looking once more to the file on Phoenix.

"Who are you?" I mumbled, staring at the words without really seeing them. I could feel the air moving as someone opened the door and looked around. Jane stood there, watching me closely.

"How are you feeling?" She asked. I shrugged, smiling as best I could.

"Headache, but that's about it."

"Feeling up to joining us?" There was a touch of hope in her voice. I paused, slowly closing the folder and slipping it on top of the others. I'd have to find a place to hide them later. Thinking about it, I should probably try to delete any digital copy I could get my hands on so no one else could access them.

"Sure. So long as we don't bring up me going to see any more doctors." Jane smiled.

"It's a deal." I stood up, picking up the candle, then headed over to her. I glanced one more time at the chair I had been sitting in, at the small pile of files I had collected. Then I looked out the window to where Stark tower stood proudly, a smile growing on my lips. Of course the Avengers would probably have something to do with this power cut, and chances were as soon as I got back to them I'd hear all about it. It was a strangely nice thought. Then I closed my door, following Jane down the hall to the living room where my foster parents had set up some kind of a meal. Such was life. And maybe, just maybe, it was a taste of what a normal life could be like.


End file.
